


The Trial of the Winter Soldier

by MsMockingbird



Series: The Mockingverse [19]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Mockingbird (Comic), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Baseball, F/M, Other, legal stuff, trial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-08-27 08:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8393581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMockingbird/pseuds/MsMockingbird
Summary: Bucky gets arrested for treason...but treason to whom?





	1. First Inning -- Batter Up

It was the bottom of the fifth inning and the MLB all-star team was in big trouble. 

Benson Hitchford, who’d volunteered to manage the team for the charity event because it kept him away from his family on this long weekend, had expected a blow out. 

He was getting one.

The Avengers—all six of them—were destroying his hand-picked team of contract killers. 

The score was 5-0. And the cocky blond guy pitching for the superhero team hadn’t thrown more than nine pitches in any inning. He was throwing a perfect game, in fact. 

“Coach, why isn’t this guy starting for someone?” asked his assistant manager, a short stumpy guy who worked in the Red Sox organization.

The black guy at first base-Falcon-heard them. “He’s too old,” he said, grinning in their direction. He and Benson could have been father and son, same clear dark skin, same lanky build.

Benson just glared at him and spat into the dirt to one side. “Its the damn women I don’t understand,” he muttered. “How are they playing like this?”

Falcon answered him again. “They spar Thor, my man. Jumping for a line drive is a lot easier than that.”

“The blond hit a fucking home run,” Ben snapped, irritated. 

“That’s Mockingbird. She’s a stick fighter. It’s in her wheelhouse.”

On the field, the guy on the mound-Hawkeye-struck out the best hitter in baseball on three straight pitches. Ben looked down at the radar gun. 130 mph. Damn thing had to be broken.

The hitter, Guttierez, lost his mind. Screaming at the ump, at the catcher. At the pitcher. In fact, he started towards the mound waving his bat. Hawkeye reacted by backing up away from him, but his hands came into a fighting stance.

Falcon at first and Black Widow at second went towards him, to take his back. Behind Ben the MLB bench rose and surged forward. He spun around and tried to intimidate them back to their seats but it wasn’t working.

A couple of them came up the stairs and it looked like they were about to have a bench clearing brawl between the best players of baseball and the Avengers, outnumbered 5 to 1. 

Captain America, who was handling the entire out field on his own, streaked in like a line drive. As he passed the MLB dug out he just pointed at the two guys on the dirt, just pointed at them and they nearly fell down the stairs to get back onto the bench.

Gutierrez was winding up to swing at the three Avengers on the mound when Captain America reached them…and went right past them to body check the blond woman playing the left side of the infield on her own. She had been about to clock Gutierrez, Ben realized. He came up and out to join the umps at the brawl in time to hear the woman scream at the player, from over Captain America’s shoulder.

“You wanna hit someone with a bat, you pissy little bitch! You come at me! I’ll take it away and shove it—”

Captain America put both his hands on her shoulders and whipped her away from the group, putting his face down into hers and speaking to her in a swift quiet voice.

Hawkeye, ignoring the furious Gutierrez, joined them and the woman calmed a little, still glaring over her shoulder. Ben walked up and wordlessly took the bat out of his player’s hand, sent him back to the bench. The umpires stood next to the mound, visibly uncertain of what to do.

Captain America pointed at the Avengers bench and Hawkeye and the blond—Mockingbird—stomped off. Falcon, Black Widow and the weird dark-haired guy catching for them joined the other two.

Turning to the officials and the other manager Captain America nodded. “Don’t eject them, if that’s okay?”

“My guy started it,” Ben said, calmly. 

“Yes. But Mock was willing to finish it and that’s just as bad. Let it be.” The tall blond man, so absurdly youthful looking to project as much gravitas as he did, cocked his head. “This is a charity game. I’m all for giving people a show. An almost fight is okay; Mockingbird’s a fighter. The people and the press know that. People will think its funny. We don’t need rage. I’ll control my people, you control yours. All right?”

They all nodded and the Avengers cleared the field for the top of the sixth. 

By chance the first person up that inning was Mockingbird. She trotted up to the plate in her neat little pin stripe uniform—all the Avengers were wearing custom uniforms in their personal colors—hers was very very dark blue and white.

Ben had seen Gutierrez and the pitcher, Ducave, having a short exchange as they crossed paths. He had a terrible feeling about what was about it happen. He perched on the edge of the stairs, feeling like he should just call for the paramedics now to save time.

The blond woman—batting second in the line up, with Hawkeye and then Captain America due next—tapped the plate an brought the bat up. She had a simple stance, taller than he was used to and apparently liked the ball inside. Her home run in her first at bat had been off an inside pitch.

Ducave wound up and threw a fast ball on the outside corner of the plate. Mockingbird held her place and took the called strike, nodding a little. 

The second pitch went straight for her head. 

A yell went up from the crowd as she jerked back away from it. Ben looked over at the Avengers dugout, expecting to see them up and at arms.

Captain America was just looking away from the field, covering his mouth in a yawn. He said something to Falcon that made him laugh. The red head—Black Widow—and the catcher, listed on the line up as ‘James Barnes’ were staring at each other with nearly pornographic intensity. 

Hawkeye was throwing peanuts at them from the end of the bench, not seeming to notice that someone had just tried to take off his wife’s head.

As Ben watched Barnes caught one of the nuts, shelled it and fed it to Black Widow with his fingers.

Mockingbird stepped back off the plate and just looked at Ducave with a little quirk to her lips, then stepped back into the batter’s box. 

Ducave wound up and Ben suddenly knew what he was going to do. His stomach dropped into his shoes.

The most vicious thing a pitcher could do in baseball wasn’t to throw at someone’s head. It was to throw _just behind them._ The natural reaction to a baseball flying at your face was to flinched backwards. Right into the path of the ball.

Ben heard the grunt of effort as Ducave released his pitch, clearly intended to take the blond’s head off. 

The blond did exactly the wrong thing and jerked backwards again. The baseball was centered on her face.

She caught it.

Her left hand, in a batting glove, released the bat and rose up languidly. She stopped the ball just in front of her nose, holding it still to make it very clear what the intended target was. There was a collective gasp from the bench behind Ben and the entire packed stadium. 

The Avengers were all looking at Mockingbird and Captain America had a smile on his face.

She grinned back at him, then whipped the ball—with her off hand—back to the pitcher. Ben heard her yell clearly. “Some of us are here to play. Act like a man.” At first base Gutierrez heard it too.

The plate ump was staring at her. She looked at him and shrugged, raised her hand to where the pitch had been.

“Ball one!” Yelled the ump.

“Time!” Screamed Ben, then trotted out to the mound.

He looked at Ducave like he was something he’d scraped off his shoe. “If you throw at her again, I will see you back in single A for the rest of your life, understood?”

Ducave, his face white, nodded. “She caught it. One handed, dude. She caught the fucking ball.”

“Yeah. Maybe don’t piss her off?”

“Fuck no,” Ducave gulped.

Ben turned and trotted towards the plate, angling a little towards his own dug out. As he got close to Mockingbird he called out, softly: “How?”

She shrugged, swinging the bat with ease. “I’ve caught Cap’s shield. Baseball ain’t no thing.”

On the next pitch, she bunted. Down the first base line, directly at Gutierrez. He charged forward, scooped up the ball smoothly, then stepped off the baseline to tag her as she ran past. 

She jumped over him, like a gazelle, a smooth tumbling leap over his head to land on her feet and delicately trot the next few steps to the base. 

“Safe!” Yelled the ump. 

The crowd rose to its feet and shrieked with joy. 

The next person up was Hawkeye, grinning down the baseline at his wife. 

Ducave checked her back to the base with a quick look, then delivered his first pitch to the archer-Avenger. 

Mockingbird stole second. Standing up.

A wave of laughter passed around the stadium. 

On the next pitch, Hawkeye bunted. Down the first base line again. 

_He also jumped over Gutierrez._ He was less graceful than the woman, but he cleared the player by at least a foot and was called safe.

“Is that legal?” Asked the assistant manager incredulously. 

“I don’t even care,” Ben muttered. “They’re just teaching these idiots a lesson now.”

Captain America strode to the plate, looking calm and collected. He tipped his hat to the cheering crowd, as he had every time he’d come onto the field.

Nervously, Ducave polished the ball on his thigh, wound up and threw what would have been a blistering hundred mile an hour fastball in any other game.

In the slow motion replays, Ben actually saw Captain America tee up and hold still, literally waiting for the ball to get to him. A hundred miles an hour, in the perfect outside edge of the strike zone and the big blond man acted like it was a slow-pitch softball coming down the middle. 

His bat broke as he hit, impacting the ball first, then shattering like glass. 

The baseball soared away from him like it was scared, up and up and up, past the last tier of the bleachers and out of the stadium entirely.

In the awed silence that followed Captain America’s cheerful exclamation rang out for the whole infield to hear.

“You probably shouldn’t make us mad again!”

Hawkeye had started to walk to second as Captain America was taking the swing and he just kept walking. Mockingbird waited for him, stepping off her base as he stepped on, grinning and speaking to him in an undertone as they advanced towards third a pace behind each other. 

Captain America rounded first trotting backwards, waving nonchalantly at Gutierrez as he passed. 

Ben looked at his coaching staff. “We’re losing 8-0. And they’re being _nice_ to us. Tell these assholes to keep it clean from now on. I don’t want to lose this twenty to nothing.”

The three Avengers scored one step behind each other and left the field.

The crowd was on its feet the whole time, screaming.

Three innings later the score was 10-0, Hawkeye had pitched a perfect game and the entire MLB team acted like Mockingbird was made of lava. The end of the game high five line was incredibly awkward. Or it would have been, except Mockingbird made a point of shaking Ducave and Gutierrez’s hands, speaking to them softly and privately for a moment. They both stepped away from her with thoughtful expression on their faces.

The highlight of the game was Iron Man landing on the pitcher’s mound as the players lined up on each base line and waving to the cheering crowd. He announced the really huge amount of money the pay-what-you-can event had raised and then announced Stark Industries would be matching it.

Captain America trotted up and spoke to him a moment, then trotted back to the Avengers line, grinning. Iron Man took off, circling the stadium to adoring shouts as the two teams trailed away.

“He says Pepper’s got catering ready for us back at the Tower. Let’s shower and get home.”

The Avengers cleared the field in good spirits.

*****

When the rushing water of the shower head clicked off, Steve heard Mockingbird’s voice raised in fake-consternation in the locker room.

“Will you two assholes put on your shirts? I’m supposed to be monogamous here!”

“So don’t look,” snorted Falcon.

“ _Have you looked at yourself, jackass?_ Or Barnes? And oh, goody, here comes Steve in a fucking towel! I’m going to drop you guys into a supermodel swimsuit photo shoot and tell you not to look!”

Bobbi was making big dramatic gestures with her hands in the middle of the room, while Natasha smirked at her from the wall, her arms crossed. Both women were in sports bras and shorts, hair freshly washed. The guys had ceded the showers to them first.

Clint was sitting on the bench in just his boxers, looking up at his wife with something like worship. You could surprise that expression on his face at the oddest times.

Falcon and Bucky were literally posing next to the lockers, flexing and turning in place. Mockingbird made a series of sputtering noises and threw up her hands. Clint pulled her down into his lap, kissing her neck. 

Natasha started to laugh, then pulled Bucky into the wall next to her. She ran her hand up his metal arm, smiling. She had been smiling so much more in the months Bucky had been in the Tower. 

Steve and Sam exchanged a look, happy and content. There was a flurry of clothing and the Avengers were ready to leave.

Mockingbird stuck her head out the door and made sure the coast was clear. They’d set up a couple of the Iron Legion drones at various points to keep everyone away from their locker room. Steve had been last into the showers because he’d been giving interviews. He’d hip-checked Mockingbird off at least two mikes on the way past the press. 

Winding their way through the tunnels towards where their vehicles were parked the Avengers were in great good spirits, laughing and joking. Steve walked behind all the others, watching them like a proud papa duck. Bucky had been living in the Tower for month now, attending therapy sessions with Falcon and Mockingbird, training, learning about all the things he’d missed in the modern world. He was calmer, more focussed. He’d started to remember things about their life together as children.

“No,” he was saying to Hawkeye. “No one ever picked him. I used to beat people up until they put him on teams. Sandlot baseball got rough, he broke his wrist twice in one month.”

“It was three times,” Steve called. Bucky glanced over his shoulder, grinning. “It wasn't my drawing hand, thankfully.”

They crossed out of the under ground into the private parking lot. In a single heartbeat every Avenger was on guard. There were three men standing near their vehicles, all in black suits.

“Two more at my three,” Mockingbird said quietly. From the other side of the group, Natasha chimed in with “Three more at nine.”

Steve moved forward and addressed the man at the center of the main trio.

“Can we help you?” Behind him, the others were pulling into their combat positions, Bucky and Falcon to Steve’s shoulders; Hawkeye turning around to take rear guard, Bobbi and Natasha moving out to stay mobile.

“No, thank you, Captain Rogers,” the man said quietly. He was impeccably dressed in a dark suit clearly suit to accommodate a side holster. All the other men, of various races, were big and armed. The Avengers were mostly without weapons, though Steve had his shield, now prominent on his left forearm. Mockingbird had her sleeve holsters for her batons. There was no way Black Widow didn’t have at least one knife. 

Three more men had appeared behind them from the inside of the stadium. Eleven to six. It was hardly fair. The Avengers would go through these guys like butter..

The leader of the group showed Steve a badge that read “Homeland Security”. “I’m Agent Terekovsky. We’re here for James Buchanan Barnes.”

Bucky stepped forward. “What? Why?”

“Mr Barnes, you’re under arrest. Please come quietly?”

“Under arrest? For what?” Natasha said sharply, her eyes narrowing.

“Treason.”


	2. Second Inning -- Strike Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The best way to stay alive for the Avengers? 
> 
> Be at least a step ahead of the bad guys...and have a really good lawyer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #MockingbirdNation is a real hashtag. I started it on Twitter :-)
> 
> Please use it on any social media! Show the world our strength!

Clint and Sam stepped between the men and Natasha, Steve and Bucky. They both had their hands up in placating gestures, directed at the other Avengers. Behind them, the Homeland agent had a perplexed look on his face but he didn't stop Bobbi from taking his ID card and badge from his hand and scanning it with her phone. She handed it back, then stepped up next to the trio, looking down at her display. 

"It's legit. His is anyway," she said, turning her head to look at Clint. They exchanged a long look and he nodded, a little grin starting. She looked back at the others, seeing the tension in Steve's forehead that meant he was on his slow burn anger track. 

Natasha had moved closer to Bucky, who had that vague confused look he got sometimes. They'd noticed in the last few months that outside authority figures scared the shit out him. He could barely look at the security guards at Stark Plaza. Steve had to call Natasha to Central Park in the rain when a police officer on a horse stopped he and Bucky while they were running and the Winter Soldier had a panic attack. 

Bobbi and Sam also exchanged a look and a nod. She turned back to the trio. "Nat, get him--get you both--out of here. Take the car. We have contingencies remember? Okay, we all thought it'd be Tony getting arrested...but the plan stands. Assume there's a camera. The last thing we need is video of Captain America and Black Widow flipping out on YouTube. We'll take care of him." She nodded at Bucky, who blinked owlishly. 

The servos on his metal arm started to whine, under his long sleeved shirt. 

Nat leaned in and whispered something to him. He looked at her without recognition for an eye blink then slowly, slowly seemed to see her again. He cocked his head and brushed her ear with his lips, nodding. Steve stepped up and clasped his arm, his mouth moving like he wanted to speak, then just shook his head. He and Nat walked to the StarkCar they'd brought, with Bobbi and Clint's motorcycles just behind it. The ring of men parted to let them through, their relief palpable. Bucky took a step in that direction, like he wanted to follow, but Sam and Clint got in front of him. 

As the car pulled away with Steve's usual reckless panache, Bobbi spoke directly to Bucky for the first time. "Barnes, you hear me?" When he nodded, she continued: "Do you trust us?" Another nod. "Good, let these men arrest you, all right?" He twitched, but nodded slowly. 

She turned back to the Homeland agent, Terekovsky. "You treat him like he's made of glass, okay?" 

"We have to cuff him," the man said warily. She waved that off sharply, her eyes cold, looking at Sam and Clint. 

The three Avengers appeared to be communicating telepathically as four of the men advanced on Bucky, put a pair of those new Hammertech powered forearm cuffs on him (which everyone knew had been developed to hold Thor and Steve) and started to move him towards their vehicle, parked to one side. 

Sam glanced down at his phone and nodded. "They're away." He took off his jacket to reveal he was wearing his flight rig. 

Clint turned to Terekovsky. "Now arrest _me_ " 

"What? No," the man blurted out. 

"Okay," said Clint. 

And punched him. 

Clint could break a man's jaw in one punch, with either hand, so the fact that the Homeland agent could still sputter through his bloody mouth meant Hawkeye'd pulled it. Bobbi and Sam stepped back, their hands in the air, not interfering. 

One of the other men grabbed Clint's arm. That guy took a punch to the gut that left him retching on his knees. Clint laughed. 

"Arrest me or I keep dropping guys until no one's left!" he called cheerfully. 

After looking at their boss, blood dripping from his mouth, two of the remaining thugs peeled off and grabbed Clint's arms, clipping another set of the cuffs on his forearms. 

Clint grinned over his shoulder at Bobbi and Sam as they shoved him in the back of one of the cars. 

Bobbi called out, "They need to ride in the same car". 

Terekovsky snarled, "What? Why?" 

"Clint's his comfort animal," she said blandly. Sam turned away, his shoulders twitching with suppressed laughter. 

Her only response was Bucky being wedged next to Clint, the men flanked by agents, in the back of one of the three unmarked black vehicles, which exited in a tight formation a moment later.

Falcon threw Bobbi his jacket and took off straight up. He had a mission. 

***** 

In the back seat of the government vehicle, Bucky stared at Clint. "What are you doing, Barton?" 

The men on either side of them looked uncomfortable but said nothing.

Clint flexed his shoulders against the leather seat. "As if we'd leave you alone with anyone from any government agency," he said with a laugh. Bucky shook his head slowly, his dark soulful eyes filled with emotion. 

In the front seat Terekovsky was having an urgent conversation with someone on the phone, constantly looking over his shoulder at the prisoners. The little convoy took a few turns and then stopped at a red light. 

"Isn't your headquarters east of here?" Clint said. "Shouldn't you been turning right?" 

The silence that followed was both resounding and guilty. 

Clint nodded. "Hey, if your GPS is broken, I'm sure Mock can help with directions." 

"What the hell are you--" 

The snarl was interrupted by the sound of metal tapping on glass. Just outside the passenger window a motorcycle had threaded through traffic to pull up next to the vehicles. The rider was tapping the end of a metal baton on the window. When it didn't roll down, the baton tapped again, harder. 

"She'll break it, you know," Clint said. 

Terekovsky rolled down the window "What?" he yelled 

"Just wanted to say hi!" called Mockingbird cheerfully, flipping her full helmet mask up. Her custom riding gear, dark blue with white accents, was molded to her face, pulled off and away from her peripheral vision. Her clothing, including her jacket, prominently displayed the Avengers logo. "You guys seem lost, did you need help with the directions to your office?" 

"I was just saying that, little bird," said Clint. She made kissy lips at him. 

The light turned green and the cars around them either started to move or honk. Mockingbird turned and waved at the cars behind the convoy. "Official Avengers business!" She cried loudly. "Tell your friends! Tag me on Instagram and Twitter hashtag #MockingbirdNation!" 

Cameras were being brandished on the street and in the stopped cars. Clint leaned forward to photobomb a couple of them. 

Mockingbird leaned into the window. "Tell you what, I'll just follow them all the way to their office to make sure they don't get lost again, okay guys?" She smiled at the jovial Clint and stunned looking Bucky and turned to Terekovsky . She was still smiling but it brought to mind a shark circling a diver's cage now. "Right? That'll be helpful?" 

Her response was a loud "Just drive!". The car nearly clipped her on the way through the now yellow light. But it turned, inexorably, east. 

***** 

At the non-descript office building not too far from the United Nations the three cars swung into a secure, gated loading bay. Mockingbird's motorcycle pulled up to the gate as it closed and she waved until she was obscured by the metal. There was a clanging noise and she appeared on the fire escape of the building across the street, hanging off it one handed and holding her Starkphone up. Filming. 

Clint and Bucky were pulled roughly out of the vehicle and her voice drifted through the air. "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate," she called in a cheery voice. Terekovsky literally flinched when he heard her. 

Bucky leaned down into Clint. "You guys planned for this? One of you getting arrested?" 

"Yeah," Clint responded, watching as their escorts milled about uncertainly. "The assumption was it'd be Tony, Nat or Bobbi. But the plan's the same. Never alone. Always seen." 

"Why are you doing this? Doing this for...for me?" Bucky asked, his voice dark and agonized. 

"Ain't doing it for you, specifically, Barnes. Mostly for Steve and Nat, really. But also...cause you're part of us. I'd do it for Hill, or Potts, or any random Stark Employee. For Rhodey or Happy. We don't abandon people, Barnes. Not ever." 

The Winter Solider had been abandoned by his government into the Red Skull's hands to be rescued by Captain America. Left for dead later. Tortured, brainwashed, betrayed, destroyed and remade by evil. Forced to kill innocents and criminals alike. He'd lost and found the two people he loved and they were helping him slowly put his head back together. The Winter Soldier stared at the Avenging Archer, his eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears. 

"Dude, seriously, has no one ever stuck up for you before?" Clint said quietly. 

"I did all the sticking up," Bucky muttered, then paused. "That sounded wrong, didn't it?" 

Somehow they were both laughing as they were frog marched into the back door of the building. Just inside, the whole group paused for a while and then one of the agents stuck his head out the door and cursed. "She's still back there. And there's a drone with her now." 

" _Hi Redwing!_ " Clint yelled. 

Terekovsky looked at him. "She's going around the front of the building right now isn't she?" 

"Oh yeah. Redwing'll track the back three sides--he can read our biometrics from a couple blocks out. If we leave the building, she'll know." 

"I hate you people," the man hissed, looking visibly older than he had at the back of Yankee Stadium. "You arrogant fucking pricks think you're above the law, no oversight, no due process." 

Clint stared at him. "I'm not the one who wasn't taking us here in the first place. Buddy. Where were we going? Who were you talking to on the phone? Do you think we're stupid? Also, what kind of sociopath hates Captain America? He climbed into a sewer last week to rescue ducks. They're _still following him around_. They made a nest on the pool deck." 

Bucky guffawed. 

Terekovsky waved his hands in the air after wiping the blood from his mouth again. "Take them...I don't care, find a room to lock them in. I have phone calls to make." 

The armed suits pulled Bucky and Clint along a few corridors and eventually landed them in a nondescript interrogation chamber, complete with bare table and sound muffling walls. They sat the prisoners at the far side of the table and had an under voiced argument about who had to stay in the room. The two clearly junior...whatever they were...lost and took up the usual spots on either side of the door. 

Once the rest of them had cleared the room, Clint looked at Bucky and said brightly, "I Spy With My Little Eye..." 

***** 

"...something that begins with....C" 

"Chair," Bucky answered without a pause. 

"Aw, come on, Barnes you're supposed to at least try to guess. How'd you know it was 'chair'?" 

"Because it was chair the other thirty seven times" Bucky replied flatly, sounding remarkably Steve-like. 

Clint looked at the men by the door out of the corner of his eye. Almost but not quite yet ready to chew their own legs off to escape. 

"Well, let's see if I can fool you at least once. I spy with my little eye something that--" 

The door to the room opened and Mockingbird bounced in, all gold and blue and cheerful violent energy. 

"--begins with 'L'" Clint finished, sitting up and grinning at her. 

"Little bird?" she asked. 

"No," Clint jerked his head towards the other person coming through the door, bent nearly double to clear the lintel. "Lawyer." 

Jennifer Walters--She-Hulk--straightened up to her full 6'7" height and smiled dryly at Clint. Her business suit, custom obviously, was a rich black, setting off the emerald sheen of her face and neck. Not as massive or bulky as her cousin, she literally radiated power. The air in the room got a little warmer, as though she brought a nuclear reactor with her. 

"But, yes," Clint said to his wife. "Also little bird. And love of my life. And luscious." 

"Lively," chimed in Bucky. "Loyal. Lioness." 

"Lime Green!" crowed Clint. 

Jen shook her head. "Forget it. They can stay in custody." But she was still smiling when she said it. When she turned and looked at the two guards at the door her smile faded. Plunking her massive briefcase down on the table, she pulled out a sheaf of papers. "These are full release forms for Clinton Francis Barton and conditional release forms for James Buchanan Barnes. Get your boss in here. We need to talk." One of them scurried out and the other nervously stepped out of the open door. 

Bobbi handed bottled water to the guys, updating them swiftly on the current situation. "Sam left me Redwing after fetching Jen here for us and went back to the Tower to take a watch with Thor. Tony sent Hill in the Quinjet for Sharon, who I gather is _super pissed off right now_. Whatever this was supposed to be, someone slide it in under her radar. She and Nat set up flags for people trying to get at us this way. Steve is pacing on the deck being followed by the ducks so he can't yell or hit things. It scares the ducklings." She looked at Bucky, her face taking on a gentle aspect. "Nat's outside, in the car. She had to be close or she would have gone mad, she says." 

Bucky gulped and nodded at her. “Thank you.”

Terekovsky bustled in, his mouth still bloody, and snatched the papers from She-Hulk’s hand without speaking. He dropped Clint’s release package back on the table with contempt, glaring at the archer, and started to read Barnes forms very carefully. Every page made his face drop a little more.

At the end he laid them down on top of Clint’s and his hand was shaking.

“Yes,” Jen said sweetly, as though answering a question he hadn't spoken out loud, “They are that air tight.”

“It specifies he be incarcerated in a secure facility. Well, I’m pretty sure he can break out of any prison in a five state area, even if the rest of them don’t help him. So we’ll _have to take him_ , won’t we?” Terekovsky said, visibly grasping at straws.

“Oh, no,” Mockingbird said cheerfully, moving over to stand behind Clint and rub his shoulders. “That’s where I come in. Or more specifically, the former agency known as Shield does.”

*****  
Several hours later, Bucky was sitting on a rather comfortable if industrial bed in the middle of a windowless room lit by fluorescent lights. One wall was a clear bullet proof polymer, reinforced with titanium rebar. There was a second smaller doorless entry in the far wall, leading to a three piece bathroom. There were cameras incased in the same polymer at every corner of the main room. A table and two chairs sat to one side, along with a filled book case and a brand new Stark Entertainment System on one wall. 

On the other side of the polymer stood Mockingbird, Black Widow, She-Hulk, Hawkeye and Terekovsky with three of his men. The room was equipped with monitors, couches and tables, as well as a coffee machine, a refrigerator, a hot plate and two separate bathrooms. 

Bobbi was gesturing and her voice was being piped to him through a sound system.

“There are seismic sensors on all the walls, the floor and the ceiling—the entire structure is suspended within the concrete blast bunker with a six inch gap on all sides. If anything tries to burrow into that space, all hell breaks loose. This wall can be opaqued at night and there are no monitors in the bathroom. It was designed as an extreme safe house for not entirely friendly guests. But no one gets in or out without being seen, recorded and noted.”

Black Widow took up the refrain. “The deal’s simple. Your people monitor visually as you wish but there is always at least one Avenger here too, 24/7. No one takes him out of there without full legal permissions, even if he agrees to it without them, and no one goes in without his consent. No live audio feeds in or out without both James and the Avenger present agreeing. The Avengers will provide meals for themselves and James. Your people are on their own. Any Avenger doing guard duty will have all their gear with them and a constant open connection to Jarvis. Agreed?”

“Please note, this will constitute a legally binding verbal agreement but I will have the details typed up and transmitted to your offices to be added to the conditional release documents,” Jen Walters added calmly. 

“If he tries to escape we will fucking shoot him,” ground out Terekovsky.

“Understandable,” Jen said with a nod, looking at the Avengers.

“Fine then,” the Homeland Security agent snarled, then stalked out of the room, leaving two of his men behind. They looked forlorn but settled in stoically.

Black Widow sighed in something like relief. “Jen, thank you for dropping what you were doing to assist. We owe you.”

“Stark’s retainer more than compensates for that, don’t worry,” the huge green woman rumbled, her rich measured tones making the walls vibrate a little. “I’m going back to the office to ties some things up, call if you need me. Clint, Bobbi.”

“Nat, you going to be okay here? I need another shower by now,” Clint said.

The redhead reached out and took one of each of their hands. “I will be well enough. Thank you, my loves, for everything.”

“Family, sestra. We’re family, in all the ways that matter,” Bobbi said smiling. “I’m staying too, for a bit, so you can have some alone time with Barnes.” She kissed Clint on the cheek. “Send one of the bikes back for me when you get home.”

“Sure little bird,” he said, nuzzling her neck then departing, nodding at the Homeland agents on his way out. “Stay away from my wife, guys. She bites.”

Mockingbird snorted and flopped down onto one of the couches, pulling a paper back book out of her jacket. 

Black Widow smiled at the Bartons fondly, then turned and entered the air lock into the cell/apartment. When the door cycled locked behind her, the other one opened.

Bucky stood up, staring at her. The polymer wall went opaque behind her and before the audio link cut out they both heard Mockingbird’s laconic “Calm the hell down, boys. The cameras are still recording, you just don’t get to watch.”

In silence, Natasha threw herself into Bucky’s arms, weeping. 

They curled up on the mattress together, creating a little bubble of peace in the nightmare of uncertainty the day had become.

“What are we going to do, milli moy?” Bucky murmured into her hair, his metal arm tight around her shoulders.

“We trust in my team, James. We trust the Avengers.”


	3. Third Inning -- A Swing and A Miss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A legal wrinkle in the Winter Soldier's impending trial leaves the Avengers without a lawyer...

“Steve?” Bobbi spoke from behind him, where he was sitting on the pool deck. He had a bowl of defrosted peas and corn at his left hand, which he was feeding to the ducks. They’d brought in a kiddie pool filled with fresh water for them to swim in, and constructed a small shelter that looked like an open sided rustic cottage. He and Bucky had built it in fact, over one sunny afternoon, being teased mercilessly by the Bartons, Sam and Tony the whole time. 

But it was Clint who’d gone out and gotten the pool, and Bobbi who’d researched the kind of food to feed them (not bread—never bread) and Sam who’d fetched in wood chips and straw for them to bed down in.

Tony had named them Huey, Dewy, Louie, Donald and Daisy for the mother. Steve even got that reference.

“Yeah?” He responded, turning to look at her. 

It wasn’t Bobbi standing there. It was Mockingbird, in her full tactical suit with all her weapons. “Jen’s here and she needs to talk to us all. Hill took Natasha’s watch so she’s back. And after Jen leaves…we have to…have that group meeting. You need to get into your gear.”

“Right, yes. Be right there.” It might have been Steve who’d been sitting there in a funk but it was Captain America who stood up, bustling with energy.

When he got to the conference room, Jen was chatting with Bruce, both of them looking relaxed and happy. Seeing Bruce talking to someone he wasn’t afraid of hurting made Captain America’s heart ache even more. No Avenger should have to be afraid like Doctor Banner had to be all the time. They should be paying more attention to his needs, as a team.

After this crisis, he promised himself.

“Okay, that’s all of us,” Mockingbird said when Captain America took his seat. “What’s up?”

“Well, I finally got HS to cough up the legal papers for Barnes’ arrest. They look…hasty…is all I can say. Like something that had been cooked up in the three days since this all kicked into gear. But they put us in a bad spot no matter what.” Jen looked around at everyone. “First off, he’s not being accused of treason against the US—he was legally dead the entire time he was being the Winter Soldier—he’s being accused of treason against _Russia_.”

Black Widow shouted a phrase in Russian that made Mockingbird laugh in a guilty manner. When everyone else looked at them, Widow shrugged. “I suggested fornicating with a maternal parent.”

Jen laughed. “Sounds about right. It’s pretty brilliant actually because it means you need to hire a new lawyer.”

“Why?” Captain America said with intensity, leaning forward in his chair.

“Because they’ve asked for a trial to be held at the Hague, as an international court. And that means I can’t be there.”

“Why not?” Said Iron Man

“She’s classified as a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” Bruce said softly. “We both are. Why do you think I never leave the States unless I’m on a mission?”

Jen nodded. “I can cross borders on super hero business, as She-Hulk but not as a lawyer. I can give you a list of suggestions—”

“Uh, no, this one I think I can handle,” Mockingbird interrupted. “Just continue.” Natasha shot her a look and got a nod in response. The red head settled back, her mouth set in a firm line of approval. 

“Well, anyway, it’s not clear who’s bringing the suit in the first place. I keep running into dead ends there. Look, no matter what, I’m still working on this case. If it means doing consults at 3AM via Skype, I’ll do it. You just need to get someone on the ground there in Netherlands for you. Right?” She nodded at Mockingbird. “All I can say right now is, this is hinkey. Really hinkey. That’s a technical term.”

Jen ran through a few more logistical things, then departed after downloading the entire legal file to Jarvis. Fitz and Simmons—back from London for another year secondment—left after her, both clutching Starktabs full of notes and action items a grateful Bobbi and Sam had offloaded onto them.

Mockingbird stood up and manually locked the main door to the conference room, then took her seat at the table. Everyone started shifting uncomfortably, most of them looking at Iron Man, who eventually stood up. He was wearing a full suit, one of the lighter weight recon units he’d made up recently. Face plate up. He fidgeted a little then turned to Captain America and Black Widow, who were sitting next to each other.

“So, everyone bullied me into doing this, let’s make that clear?” He said in a rush, then continued. “But we all agreed we have to…we have to do something all Knights of the Round Table-like. As equals. But it affects the two of you the most and…damn, I don’t know—”

He looked at Thor who shook his head. Then Mockingbird who covered her face with her hands. Banner wouldn’t even looked at him.

“You all suck,” he muttered. “It’s just this. I think we all like Barnes. And I know we all feel for him, he’s been through hell. But even if this plays out as not a disaster, we have to make a decision about something…”

*****

The rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen belonged to Daredevil. He loved them the way some men loved their dogs or their cars: as both precious property and identity. He was the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and proud of it. He flicked his billy club out over the street, catching the neck of a burnt out street lamp and swung on the grappling wire across the gap like a man walking down a hallway. It was all rushing air and joy and power, out here. Not the grinding effort of life as a lawyer, where every case was a mire of small, meticulous action and reaction.

He landed on a large apartment building roof, all grit and tar paper under his feet, his senses telling him the location of all the vents and outcropping and waited for the woman following him to join him.

She landed light as a bird, coming from the neighbouring building. He could smell her from across the fifteen feet between them. She smelled of clean sweat, both hers and faintly of a man’s—Hawkeye, he assumed. Her hair wafted the scent of a coconut oil based shampoo. And her weapons smelled of gun oil and metal. 

Her feet barely registered on the noisy surface of the roof—even metal could be placed soundlessly on metal if you did it firmly enough—and he could _hear_ the poise and balance and strength of her body.

“Mockingbird,” he nodded in greeting, setting the terms for the meeting. Heroes, not people. 

“Daredevil,” she responded, “when did you notice me?”

“Ten blocks ago,” he said.

“Damn it,” she muttered ruefully. “I had you pegged at six.”

“Did you need something? Did Captain America?” he asked quietly, circling her.

She responded by circling herself. “I’m not his errand girl, double D.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Mockingbird shrugged. He loved her for it. She was one of the few people who knew his ‘secret’ who actually bothered to learn his limitations. She showed emotion with broad body language when she wanted him to notice it. When she was being her spy self he was on his own.

“I’m actually here to ask a favour of…someone else. But an Avenger showing up at his office would invite unwelcome attention at the moment. So I need you to…pass on a message.”

Daredevil tensed. She wanted something from Matt Murdock.

“What?” He snapped.

“The Winter Soldier needs a lawyer.”

They circled each other in silence for a full rotation while Daredevil parsed the request. 

“He has a lawyer. Literally _everyone_ in the law community knows Stark activated Walters’ retainer.”

She explained the situation in a few crisp sentences. They kept circling as he thought about it. 

“I don’t think he’d be interested in leaving New York,” he finally said quietly.

“Well, I guess we could go to a different firm. Didn’t Hogarth’s people just hire someone—”

Daredevil leapt towards her, his flare of rage catching even himself off guard. He punched his fists into her shoulders, pushing her back against a tall vent.

“You stay away from Foggy! He can’t protect himself. You assholes will get him killed,” he snarled, low and intense.

“He’s not your property, _Daredevil_ ,” she snapped backed.

He jammed his face into hers. “No but he’s part of Hell’s Kitchen. So he’s mine to protect. Stay away from him.” He let her go and backed away, breathing hard. She shook her shoulders and pulled her batons out of their thigh holsters. He circled her, his shoulders going tense. What was she going to do?

She nodded, broadly. “All right. The Avengers will stay away from Nelson.”

He stopping circling in surprise. He’d been expecting an argument.

“I understand, big D. So—wanna fight?”

That was how she’d marked him. 

*****

_**Some years earlier, just after Mockingbird joined the Avengers** _

_Matt Murdock shifted uncomfortably in his suit and tie. He was bad at this part of the job and he knew it. Foggy though. Foggy knew what he was doing. He heard his partner chatting up…oh god. He was chatting up two of the Avengers who’d shown up to the gala. Not Captain America or Iron Man—he couldn’t get close enough to them. And Black Widow hadn’t come along…thank the lord._

_But Hawkeye and Mockingbird both seemed to appreciate wit more than smooth flattery. And they were all headed his way. He steeled himself._

_“This is my partner, Matt Murdock,” Foggy announced loudly. “Matt, this is Clint and Bobbi Barton, they’re directly in front of you.”_

_Matt stuck out his hand and felt a man take it up in a firm grip. Behind the social politeness he sensed a deep well spring of strength. This was a man who could break human bone with his bare hands._

_“Hawkeye. Pleasure to meet you. I remember people describing your shooting one way and looking the other during the Invasion. It sounded…amazing.”_

_The man who laughed on the other end of the hand had a deep strong voice. He sounded happy. “Thank you. It only took decades of effort.”_

_“I’m Mockingbird—Bobbi,” said a woman from the man’s left. Her voice was soft and rich. “I’m the boy wonder’s wife.”_

_“She’s also a full Avenger,” Hawkeye added. “She beat up Captain America.”_

_The man dropped his hand and the woman captured it in both of hers. “Pleasure to meet you, Mister Murdock.”_

_She had thick pads of callus on both thumbs and the bases of each finger and her grip was as controlled and not much less powerful than the man’s._

_Matt heard her heart rate spike. Why? It wasn't arousal—she wasn’t sweating, the smell of her skin didn’t change. She was just shaking his—_

_—she was shaking his bare hand. His bare hand that had the same thick calluses hers did. His blind man’s hand should not have the callus of a stick fighter. Most people thought the hardened skin was from his cane if they noticed it at all. She instantly understood the true provenance._

_He could practically hear her putting two and two together and getting fifteen. Under every other noise his straining ears heard her sub-vocalize “Coulda warned me, Nat”._

_Well, at least Natalia had kept his secret._

*****

Daredevil raised his billy clubs. “Trial by combat went out of fashion a long time ago, Mockingbird. I’m not going to fight you to settle anything.”

She laughed. “I’m not suggesting I would be that dumb. Anything other than a fight to the death, I’d lose. You’re better than me, oh fearless one.”

They had started circling each other again.

“I’m not,” he said. “I’m not better. I’ve got super powers.”

“The story of my life, DD. Always the bridesmaid never the bride when it comes to powers. No, I just want to stick fight someone I don’t have to hold back with. It’s been a stressful few days.”

“Well, in that case—”

He threw a club at her, the traditional opening for their little romps. She deflected it with one of her combat batons and the fight was on.

Daredevil started the fight grinning. He adored sparring her. Other than Night Thrasher—who was a little too intense even playfighting—and Gambit of the X-Men Mockingbird was the only person who could stand and trade with him.

She made up for her lack of powers with a perception nearly as sharp as his enhanced senses, a lethal deviousness and a life time of experience. They crossed the distance towards each other, spinning into an exchange of blows _tap tap, crack. Crack, slide, tap tap_ alloy on alloy, the sounds sharp and fast as gunshots. Daredevil heard windows opening in the over looking apartments, voices calling ‘to come see the heroes fighting!’. 

She snapped one baton downwards towards his knee as the other spun over her head to take a backhand angle towards his neck. She had no purity in her style—taking what worked from every art she’d ever encountered, including he knew the Irish Shillelagh which was where he’d started—but her base was Escrima/Kali. The war form of those arts that was still all grace and beauty in motion. She danced like Iron Fist when she was alive with her sticks.

He flipped a club at her face, letting it extend a few inches on its grappling wire and watched her turn her head just enough to let it fly past her nose. She laughed at him and snatched at the weapon with one hand, missing it on the retraction.

His senses showed her as roaring flame against the empty black of the air, flickering around him as though creating a cyclone. Despite his enhanced speed and reflexes he found fighting her was like fighting smoke. His blows would seem to pass right through where she was—where she had been.

The combat joy was on both of them now, no more testing or teasing. They struck lethal blows at each other as though playing patty cake over a plate of cookies. Pure sticks, no kicking, no punching. Just this perfect marriage of beauty and death. 

He clipped her arm, sending her reeling away but even as he pursued her she returned to her centre, shielding his neck strike with both of her batons, slipping and shedding the power of the blow, and powering into him like a bulldozer. They slammed chest to chest, weapons bound for an instant.

“I guess I’ll just tell Natasha that Murdock didn’t think she was worth a little discomfort,” she whispered in his ear. 

His spine fused in shock and she knocked him on his ass with a double sweep of her sticks, then paced away from him. He lay flat on his back, trying to make sense of his jumbled emotions.

From above they both heard people screaming in shock and joy.

“Get’em! Girl Power!”

“Get up Daredevil, get up!”

“Bad ass Birdie!”

He had a feeling she was posing for the crowds, from the tenor of the sudden wave of laughter.

“That,” he managed eventually, “was a low blow.” He popped back up onto his feet, his mouth set in a cold line.

She shrugged elaborately. “You might not get how serious all this is to me…to us, DD. This ends badly, it ends in Barnes with a bullet in his brain.”

“If it’s that serious, why didn’t the Widow come herself?”

“Please. As if Natalia Alianovna Romanova would come to her former lover begging for her beloved’s life,” Mockingbird said with a precise amount of contempt.

“Why not? You would,” he snapped back, still stung and off balance.

“Murdock broke up with her. She’d burn the world to the ground before she’d ask him for a cup of water. That’s who she is. She’s steel and blood and the unbroken bloodline of the czars of Russia. I’m a crass American orphan, married to a carnie hick, with no pride left over things like this.” She stopped and quietly put away her weapons. There was a huge groan of disappointment from the watchers. She stepped closer to him, her voice smooth and soft in the eternal darkness of his world. “And for her? I would take what pride I had left, slice it to pieces, spit on the remains and flush it all down the toilet. For her, I would get on my knees here and now, no matter who was watching, and beg for Matt Murdock’s help. If he were here. When the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

“I am but mad North Northwest,” Daredevil muttered, then suddenly straightened, stowing his own clubs. 

“I…I’ll tell Murdock to make a visit to Stark Tower…tomorrow okay? I think he’ll want to talk to Captain America about this.”

“Thank you,” she responded, humble. “From the bottom of my heart. Tell Matt he’ll find a substantial retainer in his account for even considering taking the case.”

“Yeah. Excuse me, I gotta go find someone I can righteously beat up,” he muttered sourly.

He turned and leapt into the void between the buildings, the world around him on fire.


	4. Fourth Inning -- Loading the Bases

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt Murdock gets to know the Winter Soldier a little better as the motely crew heads off together.

Matt Murdock placed his luggage carefully on the ground, letting the edge of the rolling suitcase rest on his foot. He had to at least act like he was really blind.

He shifted awkwardly, listening to the big, open, empty space around him. This was some exclusive private hanger at the White Plains-Westchester County Airport that Stark Industries used. He’d been dropped off by the automated Starkcar a few minutes ago, making his slow and hesitant way into the building as though truly unaware of his surroundings. 

On the far side of the cavernous space a door opened. Her heard high heels clicking on cement and the scent of extremely expensive perfume wafted through the air.

“Mr Murdock,” called Pepper Potts. “My apologies, you’re early, I guess traffic was better for your trip than mine.” She came closer with every word, till the perfume swirled around him. She reached out and gently touched his arm, then took it more firmly when he nodded. “The crew will be out for your luggage in moment and Tony just texted me that the whole circus is finally almost here.”

“What happened?” Matt asked her, letting her lead him towards a small bar area nestled against the far wall. He sensed couches and chairs and smelled both alcohol and fresh coffee nearby. 

“The Russian representatives apparently didn’t understand—or claimed they didn't understand—that the Avengers only agreed to riding with them if a third party supplied the plane.” She deftly and gracefully placed him next to one of the leather couches and he sat down.

Matt snorted. “They seem to be getting desperate, they’re so obvious about it now. Jen and I went over those papers with a comb. There is no way they could have missed the ‘never alone, ever, anywhere, no Russian controlled anything’ provisions.”

“Exactly.” Pepper agreeably emphatically. “Would you like something to drink?”

Matt accepted a cup of really phenomenal coffee and had barely started it when the doors he’d come through swung open again. The crowd of people who entered were a cacophony of voices and scents—he noticed both before they even opened the door.

He could distinguish Mockingbird from the smell of her shampoo, moving silently to one side of the group, dressed in an tailored business suit and heavily armed under the concealing cut of the fabric. 

Hawkeye and Falcon were at the back of the group, chatting about sports, both in suits themselves. Captain America in his full uniform—the acoustics of his cowl and shield were unmistakable—was walking next to a man in heavy handcuffs—Barnes. Matt could hear the servos in his metal arm whining. 

He tensed, expecting to hear/smell/feel Black Widow in the air but that burst of flame that she was on his senses never arrived. Thankfully. They’d exchanged polite if strained greetings as Matt and Natasha at the Tower and in the atrium of Barnes’ cell a few times. She’d smelled and felt tense and unhappy, even a little scared. He was surprised by how much he wanted to comfort her still. 

Well, you never fall all the way out of love. 

Jennifer Walters was there, her footsteps firm and powerful even in her reinforced stilettos. She was talking with three people, a lawyer from the Homeland Security, the international court representative and the Russian delegation’s translator.

The last were five men who all reeked of flop sweat, anger and gun metal. They were muttering at each other in Russian.

The group swirled into the little lounge area and then Matt sensed one more man following along behind them all. He was slouching on soft shoes, and carried the scent of classy aftershave. Tony Stark, since he immediately peeled off and snagged Pepper around the waist, speaking to her softly. Matt forced himself to tune out their words. Not his business. 

“Mr Murdock, thank you for joining us.” That was the International Court representative, a slim short woman with an accent from Central Africa. “I am to understand you will be the legal council on the ground at the Hague?”

“Yes, though I’ll be consulting with Ms Walters as much as possible,” Matt said, holding out a hand. Everyone he hadn’t met before shook it, but not the Russians.

“Do you have no assistance?” The woman asked him, sounding perplexed.

“That’d be me,” said Mockingbird laconically. “I’m a certified legal secretary as of six hours ago.”

“Yeah, what did you get on the exam Mock?” Stark asked.

“Hundred and five percent, money man.”

The Avengers and Barnes all laughed a little. Jennifer Walters snorted. 

“And yourselves, gentlemen?” The woman from the Hague turned to Hawkeye and Falcon. “I am still unclear as to your rolls here?”

“Body guards,” Hawkeye responded. 

“They’re carrying their personal weapons,” Captain America said, his voice cold and crisp. “As allowed by UN Treaty and under the provisions set out by Mr Murdock and Ms Walters in our agreement. Once at the trial they’ll be monitored by the joint force set up by Canada and Great Britain.”

Clint, Bobbi and Sam were in fact the only Avengers legally cleared to make the trip. Black Widow couldn’t place herself under international jurisdiction as a civilian, Iron Man, Thor and Banner were considered weapons of various kinds and Captain America was deemed to be prejudicial just by existing. It had been noted by more than one government that the blond man just showing up at events and not speaking could sway public opinion to a dangerous degree. Even if he was listening to a concert.

The sales of swing music had never been brisker.

“Oh, and by the way I think Rhodey—War Machine—is coincidentally in Germany right now at some air base. If you wanna take him to dinner or something. He can be with you guys in minutes, really,” Stark said causally. 

The anger and fear in all the Russian’s sweat flared. “Already the place is stacked with your allies, Captain Rogers. Are we to expect a fair trial or to be bullied?” One of them snapped.

Captain America’s voice got colder. “How about you tell us who initiated this whole thing? The real person, not that convenient fiction—”

“What Captain Rogers means to say—” Both Matt and Jen piped up at the same time, cutting Steve off, then stopped.

“Go ahead, Ms Walters. You’re still the lead on this,” Matt acquiesced.

“What Captain Rogers means to say, sir, is that your government, the United Nations, The International Court, the President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Homeland Security, the CIA, MI-12 and CSIS have all agreed to these terms. If you want to change something now, we all go home, Captain Barnes goes back to his apartment in New York and you start filing enough paper work to drown a moose,” she said.

The Russian men, after listening to the translation, muttered angrily but stopped arguing. Bobbi had split off and was speaking to Stark in an undertone, all sibilance and plosives. Matt couldn't concentrate enough to make it out. When they broke apart the billionaire stepped forward. 

“Let’s get this show on the road before the traffic back to the city goes nuts. Your transport is taxi-ing up now.”

The wide doors to the hanger swung open with ponderous groans and whines—Matt had to grit his teeth and clutch the coffee cup still in his hand so tightly he cracked it—and a huge plane could be seen moving towards them.

“Is that yours Tony?” Clint asked.

“No, it’s Canadian. Alpha Flight lent it,” Pepper answered. “Their crew. Cross checks all the way, the Canadians have armed response on board and the Avengers have no say on the flight plan or in flight details. _We_ are abiding by the agreement.” She finished in a pointed tone. Matt remembered she had a law degree though she’d never taken the bar exam. 

Captain America turned and embraced Barnes once, a hard squeeze of this shoulders, saluted the rest of the Avengers and the two lawyers and left in a hurry. It was probably for the best. Matt had literally never heard his heart rate that high or felt that much rage boiling off the super soldier. It was like a mist in the air.

They boarded in an orderly fashion, with Barnes proceeded by Russians and followed by Falcon and Hawkeye. Mockingbird took Matt’s arm and walked with him as though they were strolling on a promenade. They waited at the bottom of the stairs for the translator and other lawyers to board. 

“Careful,” he muttered. “I am still a blind man.”

“I just look like I’m treating you with respect,” she whispered, then turned and shouted at Pepper and Tony, still standing next to Jen in the hanger. “Try and get the damn duck pond finished by the time we get back!”

“Pond?” Tony yelled. “I’m turning the west side of the plaza into a wetland!”

Matt entered the echoing metal belly of the transport plane to the sound of She-Hulk asking Tony Stark in total confusion about ducks.   
*****  
They were perhaps six hours into the thirteen hour flight—the huge plane was sturdy and reasonably comfortable but not exactly fast—when Matt tapped his way up the wide aisle and sat across from Barnes. There were a few groupings of facing chairs and an open space towards the rear of the plane. Mockingbird was currently doing one-handed handstand pushups in her business suit just to prove she could while Hawkeye cat-called her and the Russians watched silently. Falcon was up near the cock pit, chatting amicably with the flight crew, his eyes never looking away from Barnes and his team mates. The UN representative and court lawyer seemed befuddled by the whole thing but were enjoying the show.

Barnes had been watching the athletic display with something like fond amusement but when Matt sat down he focused all his attention to the lawyer. They were being monitored by the Russians and their translator so there would be no confidential talk. Since Mockingbird had guilt-tripped him into taking the case, Matt had spent a little time with Barnes alone in that remarkable cell/apartment they cooked up for him. Despite his wariness, he'd found himself warming to the mind-broken Winter Soldier. They shared a fondness for beautiful, morally ambiguous women after all.

"Whatever she's doing sounds impressive," Matt said lightly. 

Barnes laughed and described the scene, sketching in details in broad strokes that left Matt with a vivid picture in his mind, nearly as vivid as what he could "see" for himself. "She's just lucky that pencil skirt she's wearing is stiff fabric or she'd be flashing us all. But yeah, it is impressive." He paused with an air of gathering his thoughts. Matt waited, wanting to learn more about the man. At least part of what he did in any case was dictated by who he was working with. There was a good chance he'd have to put Barnes on the stand at some point. Matt wanted to know the man before he did that.

"You knew her before, didn't you?" Barnes asked eventually.

"Mockingbird? We met once at--"

"No. Not Barton. My...my _milli moy_. My winter flame. Natasha."

Matt's heart stopped beating.

 _I knew her_ he wanted to say, speaking low and soft. _I knew the sound of her breathe catching as she leaned back on my bed. I knew the smell of her skin, the texture of her hair. I knew her body, its rhythms and scents and coiled power. I knew her heart and I knew it would never be given to me. So I left._

"Yes," he replied. "We dated for a little bit...I think after she broke up with Hawkeye. Small world; I only half realized my 'Nat Roman' was Natasha Romanoff when I heard her speak after the debacle in Washington." He couldn't stop himself from continuing, knowing it was cruel. "You were there for that whole mess, right?"

Barnes controlled it well but his skin flushed and his spine stiffened. _Shame_

"I shot her during that...mess. Her and Steve. My beloved and my best friend. That is what they did to me, what they made of me. That kind of monster." He turned his face to the wall, his voice shaking on the last few words.

"Mr Barnes, I'm Catholic. If we believe in anything, it's redemption. You deserve the chance to be the man you would have been without being brainwashed and tortured." Matt raised his voice just a little, to make sure the Russians could hear him clearly. 

"I was raised Catholic," Barnes said in a musing tone after a little while. "Same as Steve. It meant more to him; he's still Catholic in his heart I think. I'm...not anymore. It's hard to believe in a merciful God after everything I've been through."

Matt nodded, settling back in his seat. The big plane was actually two levels--it was a modified military cargo hauler--and even he could barely tell they were flying it was so heavy and stable. "I understand. I think having a crisis of faith is part of being Catholic. We all go through it and you either come out the other end Catholic again or you just don't. I did, personally. But the God I believe in doesn't despise any honest heart, no matter what you say to yourself. He can't. He made us, warts and all."

"Thank you, Mr. Murdock. That's actually comforting," Barnes said. "Listen, in the spirit of honesty and all that, Nat and I are back together."

"I figured that out when I visited your little cell, Barnes," Matt said dryly. "It's not true that going blind gives you enhanced other senses but I always had a good sense of smell."

"Oh." Barnes paused, his facial temperature going up noticeably. "Well, hell. Sorry about that."

"It's all right. I'm glad she's happy. She deserves it, same as you deserve your shot at redemption."

"Is that why you took this case, Mr Murdock? For her sake?"

"Nah, he took it cause I blackmailed his skinny ass," Bobbi Barton said cheerfully, flopping down in the seat across from Barnes. Hawkeye wandered past, snorting, and went to join Falcon at the cockpit. Matt remembered he was also a pilot. 

"She didn't," he reassured Barnes. "Blackmail me. She did something worse. She made me feel guilty."

"The ultimate Catholic weapon. Still works on Steve a treat, though you gotta be subtle about it. He gets pissy as all hell if he figures it out."

"You literally have no shame," Matt said to her, unable to keep his lips from curling up in a smile.

"Not a drop." She laughed, a rich thick sound. She was sweaty under her clothes but...not as much as a she should be. She was wearing a layer of wicking fabric. Her tactical suit, the top part anyway. The echolocation off her clothing was a little mushy, as though there were extra layers. Matt shifted a little in his seat. Captain America had out right said Hawkeye and Falcon were armed--actually he'd just said 'they'. Mockingbird had her weapons too, at least some of them. Well, that was the thing with spies. They were always a little unpredictable. 

"I don't mean to be flip, Buck. I'm joking. Murdock was the guy who nearly got Punisher off--would have except Frank wanted to go to prison. He's a great lawyer and since he had experience dealing with us freaks, he was our first choice after Jen," Mockingbird settled back and popped the top off a bottle of water, drinking in gulps.

"That was mostly Foggy," Matt said in an embarrassed tone. 

"It wasn't and you know it," she said, wiping her mouth with her sleeve like a toddler. 

Barnes was quiet, studying her. He turned his whole body towards Matt after a length of time. "Mr Murdock--"

"Call me Matt."

"Bucky. Matt," he restarted, "I grew up with Steve Rogers, before he was...whatever the hell he is now. When I knew him he was this skinny little art geek, always sick, always hurting. Poor as a dog. Everyone picked on him. The girls picked on him. I remember that. I don't remember everything but I remember what he was like when I knew him, back then. He was...he was special. No matter what happened, no matter what hit him from what direction he'd pick himself up out of the dirt and the mud and the muck and keep going. His parents died, the war came, everything went to hell and he just...kept going. And then they did whatever they did to him and he turned into Captain America. Different body but inside--same guy. Same determination. Same heart. I've always hated being cold and he was this inferno of hope. Just being around him made you think everything was going to be okay, not because he'd fix it but because he'd inspire you or someone around you to do it." Barnes stopped for a minute and reached for a bottle of water himself. Mockingbird had the cap off and the bottle in his hand before he could do more than lean down. 

Matt became aware everyone in the passenger area was listening to this monologue, heartbeats slowing, breathing going a little shallow. 

Barnes had a few swallows of water and continued, rolling the bottle between his still cuffed hands. "I dreamed of being like him. Of being this shining hero he'd become. And then I fell and I should have died and the winter swallowed me. So here we are, I'm a monster and he's still the hero. But he always was a hero, even back before he looked like a Greek god. He was a hero when he was ninety eight pounds of asthma and brittle bones. It was okay then, cause there was just him. No reason to be jealous. He was _the_ hero. The one and only. Except, he's not right? I woke up this last time into a world where he found seven other people like him to hang around with. People like her--she stopped an alien invasion of the planet. Like the guys up front there. One of them has wings and the other one can slice a blade of grass in half at a click with his eyes closed. So, really, what am I in this world? What have I ever done to deserve these people getting up in arms to save my sorry behind? What do I become, when I'm not frozen any more?"

Mockingbird sighed, silently to everyone else, and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "That's what we're fighting for, Buck. For you to have a chance to find out. Of your own free will. No one's puppet. No one's toy. No one's slave." She spoke a little louder as she went on, verbal aggression directed at the silent Russians a few feet away, as Matt had done earlier. "I know what it feels like to be used. I'd be helping you for that alone, even without considering Nat or Steve."

"I'm just doing it for the travel miles," called Falcon from up front.

The laughter that swept through the plane was a little too loud, a little too manic, but it cleared the air of the lingering melancholy from Barnes' speech. 

Matt reached out and touched Barnes' hand. "Remember what I said about redemption. Confession and then penance. Atonement washes away all sins."

"Not enough water in the world to get me clean," Barnes replied softly. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, not sleeping. 

Mockingbird stood up and walked up to talk to Hawkeye, then back towards her seat. Matt met her part way and put his hand on her shoulder. She leaned forward--she was taller than he was, despite being in flats.

"I'm in," he said into her ear. "You were right to strong arm me. I'm in."

"I knew you would be. Nat's a good judge of character," she said, smugly. 

"Really? She seems to like you," he responded, then turned on his heel, found his own seat and settled in for a nap. Grinning. 

What kind of lawyer didn't get the last word?


	5. Bottom of the Fifth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damning new evidence appears to convict the Winter Soldier. But something more is revealed as well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) "Matroyshka" here on this site (and a story I'm very proud of)

Matt Murdock moved slowly around the bedroom suite they’d assigned him, on the bottom floor of Braddock House. He wanted to get a very good feel for the placement of the furniture in case he had to move fast and still look like a blind man. He was across the hall from the modified suite they’d built for Barnes, very similar to the underground cell they’d had for him in New York. Perhaps not quite as secure but for all the Russian’s grumbling, they seemed satisfied. 

Barnes himself had settled into the bed immediately and seemed to fall asleep. 

There was a knock on the door. At his hail it opened to admit a slim woman in an impeccable pant suit, the movement of the expensive fabric audible to his senses. Her voice was sweet and light, a high class British accent almost concealing the fierce iron underneath.

“Is everything well, Mr. Murdock?” Jemma Simmons asked, smiling and moving towards him a few steps. 

He cocked his head in her direction and smiled. “I’m fine, thank you Jemma. And I’ve asked you to call me Matt.” They’d met once in New York before she and Leo Fitz had harried off to the Netherlands as the Avengers/MI-13 advance team. 

“Matt. The Avengers are having a late supper, did you want to join them? It’ll be up in Bobbi and Clint’s suite on the second floor.”

“Yes, thank you,” he responded, then snapped out his cane. “Lead the way.”

He memorized the layout of the floor as she escorted him, hand on arm, to the stairs. He tapped his way up and they turned immediately to the right in the large sweeping hallway. This set of rooms must over look the drive, directly above Barnes’ suite. He knew that Falcon’s room would over look the back side of the building. He was across from Barnes on the bottom floor and Jemma and Leo had rooms to either side of his. The Russians were quartered in their other wing.

The Avengers protected their own, even here. 

The door swung open to the sound of Sam’s voice.

“I don’t get it. I still don’t get it. Treason to Russia? How are they going to pull that off?”

“That’s assuming it isn’t true,” Matt said quietly. 

There were four people in the room, Sam, Bobbi, Clint, and Leo and they were all agitated. What smelled like a tray of cold meats, cheeses and fruit lay on the coffee table, ignored. Jemma shut the door behind them, then guided him to a chair.

“It’s not true,” Clint said in a mulish tone. 

“I literally just got an email with some new documents, Matt. It all looks pretty damning. I sent it through to you about thirty seconds ago but I can give you the gist now if you like,” Bobbi said.

“Go,” he nodded, leaning forward with his cane clutched in both hands. 

“The major piece is a scan of a signed statement, dated June 5th, 1948, stating that James Buchanan Barnes renounced his American citizenship and became a citizen of the Soviet State. It looks like his hand writing—not that we’ll have time to authenticate it now— and it’s definitely his signature. It’s just plausible he did write it out himself because that was in the middle of him being tortured and brainwashed but…I don’t know.”

“Hmm. I asked him outright if he’d ever signed papers to that effect and he said no. I don’t think he was lying.” Actually, Matt was one hundred percent sure Barnes wasn’t lying but he couldn’t exactly say that in mixed company. Bobbi would read that into his words though.

“He might not remember though,” Sam said in a worried voice. “They erased Steve and Nat from his brain. A confession seems like nothing compared to that.”

“True,” Matt agreed. “I’ll have to read the whole thing before I make a decision.”

“Part two is film footage of him reading the statement,” Bobbi continued. “And it sure looks like him—”

“But?” Jemma asked. 

“Well, let me put it this way, whomever is running this con dosen’t think very highly of us. Who in their right mind tries to manipulate computer data when Tony Stark is playing on the other team?”

Clint tapped the table top, then came the sound of a cell phone being placed on the wood. “Surveillance team just gave it up. They stopped watching the front of the building.”

“Right,” Bobbi said. “Cover for me, children, be back when I’m back.”

There was the sound of the window opening and closing, a gust of cold air and Mockingbird was gone.

“Do I want to know?” Matt asked dryly.

“Nope,” said Clint. “Here, have some gouda. It’s the good stuff.”

*****

From the rooftop of an apartment building many blocks away, Mockingbird finally sat down to make her phone call. The Russian contingent had stopped watching the front of Braddock House but someone had still tracked her most of the way through the city: a small form, probably a woman, and very skilled at their job. But she was sure she’d lost them now.

“Connection, please, Jarvis,” she asked and instantly she had a real time audio link to Avengers’ Tower. She shivered slightly in the chill wind.

“Mockingbird, Cap here. You’ve got the whole team, Hill, Jennifer Walters and Agent 13 on the speaker,” Steve said crisply into her earpiece.

Dialling up the internal temp on her tactical suit—worn under her street clothes—Mockingbird smiled. 

“You got the data files I sent, Tony?” 

“Yeah. They look legit on first glance,” Tony Stark said mildly. “I love working with professionals.”

“Are we sure they aren't real?” Jen Walter asked, her voice calm and even.

“No,” said Mockingbird. “But if they’re not, it means we have to go balls to the wall to prove mental coercion and I think that’s pretty tough on a good day, right?”

“Almost impossible,” Jen confirmed. 

“I can find no link to the networks I still have in Russian covert ops,” said Black Widow, her voice colder than normal. She was controlling herself rigidly. 

“Nothing from the CIA side either,” Sharon added. “But…I didn’t know anyone was going to hit you in the first place. So it’s either happening so far above my pay grade I can’t see it or it’s on a parallel track.”

“The Joint Chiefs’ have quietly let me know it’s not one of the armed services,” said Steve. 

“And the same from the UN,” said Hill.

Mockingbird looked out of the lights of the city, searching fruitlessly for the small speck that would be Braddock House. 

“I have some…thoughts,” Mockingbird said slowly. “But they all hinge on the answer to one question, and it’s got to go to you, Sharon.”

“I’m listening,” Agent 13 said. 

“What I saw today, what you all said, those new documents showing up as we arrive here…Nat, I’m so sorry about this…Sharon, can you tell me—”

She took a deep breath.

“Is Alexei Shostakov still in federal custody?”

Black Widow started to swear, clearly and fluidly in at least six languages. 

The Red Guardian—Natasha’s former handler in the Red Room—had allied with the mystical entity that called itself ‘Baba Yaga’ and attacked the Avengers in their own tower, replacing them with doppelgängers as the monster consumed their souls. (1) He also hated Bucky as his rival for Natasha's affections, despite the fact that she had rejected him over and over until fleeing the Red Room.

Only by sheer luck and with the aid of a number of the unaligned super heros in the city had they managed to free themselves and take out Shostakov and his cohorts. The Russian nationals had all been imprisoned by the federal government for espionage. 

Sharon’s voice broke through the back ground noise in the room with a sharp command. She sounded almost Steve-like and that made Mockingbird smile again.

“Quiet! I have no idea how they—whomever they are—managed this but Shostakov was secretly extradited back to the Russian government five months ago. None of our alerts or warnings went off. They did a total end run around me those motherf—” She cut herself off with a snap. 

And there it was, the keystone, the last piece falling into place. The shape of the plot resolved itself in Mockingbird’s mind and with nearly psychic precision she knew both Captain America and Black Widow were on the exact same spot of the exact same page.

“Buck isn’t the target,” Steve said slowly.

Black Widow’s voice was clear and bleak, like the Siberian landscape that had created her. 

“No. I am.”


	6. Sixth Inning -- Full Count, Bases Loaded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiring Matt Murdock to represent the Winter Solider might have been a last resort but fate has a funny way of happening around super heros.

Matt Murdock couldn’t sleep. And it only had a little bit to do with what the grave and anxious Mockingbird had relayed when she swung back through the window of her suite a few hours ago.

He remembered Natasha speaking of Shostakov…well, she’d never named him but when they’d filled him in tonight that was clearly who’d she’d been speaking of with such anger and contempt. 

And fear, frankly.

Well deserved if he was the kind of man who could ally with something like Baba Yaga (1-Matryoshka). That he was free and targeting her again made Matt…unreasonably angry.

He had no right to Natasha. He had no claim on her. But he wanted with all his heart to protect her still.

His worry for Natasha wasn’t what was keeping him awake.

It was the damned high-pitched whine…he’d started hearing it an hour after Mockingbird had left. It wasn’t getting worse or better, just holding at the edge of his hearing. Throbbing.

In the morning he was irritable and distracted, snapping at the UN lawyer who’d come to interview Barnes and then at Simmons, that friendly young British woman the Avengers all seemed to know already. 

He stomped down the stairs to speak to Barnes about a few things, barely remembering to act as though he couldn’t see, and they’d wound up snapping at each other like hungry wolves. The one-armed man was just as tense and angry as his lawyer today.

Around noon, War Machine had shown up. The three Avengers and Murdock had been sitting on the patio outside Barnes’ room, just generally keeping an eye on everything when the sound of arc-powered thrusters washed over them. 

Something that ‘looked’ like a blob of sound and heat appeared in the air over the interior courtyard of Braddock House..

“Rhodey!” Yelled Clint as the blob of distortion landed next to the pool and split open. A man, small and wiry, emerged, his hands raised in salute.

Mockingbird, Hawkeye and Falcon moved towards him right away. They all gathered around the source of the heat and light that slowly resolved into a suit of power armor, bulkier than Iron Man’s, with missile turrets on the shoulders and a blocky, square ‘look’ to it.

Matt shook his head. That damned whine was louder, it seemed. He wanted to rip his eardrums out of his head.

“Just checking in,” said the man who’d emerged from the suit, Colonel James ‘Rhodey” Rhodes, called War Machine when he was on the Avengers roster. Matt barely heard him above the whine in the air.

Inside his cell, the Winter Soldier started to pace , his footsteps loud. Matt winced, the counterpoint of the boot stomps making his head throb worse. 

The Avengers were chatting like school-girls, laughing and play-fighting. Something about the way they interacted with each other made Matt sad as well as…annoyed. It was as though the only times in their lives they weren’t holding back something was with other heroes.

He knew what that felt like. The only time he felt free was wearing the Daredevil’s horned mask—nowsitting in its hiding place in his apartment in New York. It was when he walked around bare-faced, as Matt, that he was hiding something.

Irony, thy name is ‘secret identity’.

The Winter Soldier was snarling under his breath, just loud enough for Matt to ‘hear’ it, angry tense words in lyrical Russian. His English was almost juvenile still, most fluent in the phrases and rhythms of his lost youth. But now he sounded like Dostoyevsky. Matt didn’t understand Russian. But he’d heard Natasha say some of those words in her sleep…

“Bobbi. Bobbi, can I show you something?” he called and the blond woman spun on her heel and hurried over to him. The three men continued to talk but it was forced now, and they were all looking in his direction. 

Thank heaven for codes phrases.

“Sure, Mr. Murdock, what’s up?” She called cheerfully as she neared him. But he could smell the sudden sharpness in her sweat, the adrenaline snapping through her. 

The sound of a metal fist reverberating off of a stone floor shivered through the air. 

Mockingbird made a gesture with one hand and Clint and Sam were sprinting in their direction in the next second. Rhodey jumped backwards and the War Machine armor enfolded him like a lover, heating up and rising into the air. 

The guards inside the room were screaming now in angry and terrified Russian but they could not drown out the sound of marble cracking and shattering under the inhumanly strong blows of the Winter Soldier. 

The whine in the air was louder, interfering with Matt’s ability to “see”. He shook his head, snarling himself from the pain. Bobbi unceremoniously grabbed him by the shoulders and manhandled him away from the wall of the building, to the trunk of a big oak tree. 

“Stay here, you’ll be safe,” she snapped. He opened his mouth to protest but of course he was a blind man. What could he do?

He touched the trunk of the tree, letting the rough whorls of the wood focus and steady him. The whine was not regular but it was a wave…on the down beats for the noise he could ‘see’ what was happening in the cell room.

Barnes appeared to have been trying to punch his way through the floor-theoretically possible since they couldn’t modify the cell to the underground the way it had been in New York. But it was six feet of rock and mud before he’d get to a cellar, so it seemed futile.

Except that he’d already made a two foot hole in the floor at one edge.

Sam’s voice rose up above the noise, even above the whine. “No! Get away from the door you moron!”

It appeared that one of the Russian guards had started to open the door to the cell to shoot at the Winter Soldier, who was clearly trying to escape. 

And then there was a pile up at that same door, three Avengers versus the Barnes and Barnes was winning. The Russian guards had been unceremoniously flung back, nearly out of the room…

The whine built again and Matt fell to one knee, nearly weeping with the pressure.

Inside the house, Barnes roared like a bull. Hawkeye yelled “Bobbi!” A woman’s voice, yelling in pain, nearly the same pitch as the whine for an—

—pitch. Sonics. 

_”Turn that off, will you, Matt?” Nat said in a tense voice, clearly speaking about the ancient transistor radio at his side. They were on a sail boat, becalmed for the moment, well off the Nantucket coast and the last signal from shore had died away, leaving a thin static just at the edge of his hearing. He hadn’t even realized she would hear it._

_“Sure,” he said as he reached over and snapped it to ‘off’. “Didn’t know it would bother you.”_

_She crinkled her nose. He knew her so well, the planes and angles of her face, that even the light breeze over the water brought her features into sharp relief._

_“It reminds me of…unhappy times. And I don’t want to be reminded of those now,” she said as she walked towards him. She was wearing a bikini bottom but no top, as though clothes didn’t matter to her blind lover. He was by now certain she had guessed his secret and even his identity but he wasn’t going to let on._

_Even to a blind man, this woman was a picture of perfection…_

Subsonics. The Red Room had used subsonic conditioning on its girls, induce heightened emotional states. Apparently so had Hydra. That whine was subsonics and they were effecting the Winter Soldier, making him crazy. It had started last night so there must be something new…

Everyone, including War Machine, who was hovering just outside the room where the brawl was happening reluctant to fire on Captain America’s oldest friend, was looking away from him.

Matt dropped his cane and went up the trunk of the tree like it was a staircase, onto an outlying branch and onto the flat roof of the wing. Outcroppings of vents and skylights broke the plane of the surface here and there. He stood with his hands spread, the whine so loud it engulfed his existence, blotting out even the desperate fight in the room below. 

Whatever it was it would have to be near by…

The pattern of the sound was regular, a five beat ascent then a ten beat down. On the next down, Matt moved to his right as far as he could, then stopped. The next cycle reached him just a fraction of a second too late.

He ran as far as he could in the other direction, his super senses starting to over come the high pitched noise. 

The cycle started again, too soon.

He spun on one heel in time with the pulse and now could almost feel the pressure wave of sound passing over one ear before the other. Another step in that direction. Closer still, the whine almost unbearable now…

And the rough debris strewn tar paper roof was broken but a boxy shape that was not emitting heat and was far to small to be a window.

Matt knelt next to it, touched a smooth metal box, featureless. It hummed with vibration in the correct cycle of the subsonic noise making the Winter Soldier go berserk.

Without hesitating, Matt reared his hand back and punched the box, feeling the thin metal bend and yield under his hammer blow. His knuckles broke too but he raised his hand again and slammed it down. Boxers and MMA fighters broke bones in their hand all the time while fighting, for less cause than this.

A third punch, clean and perfect in the same precise place as the first two and the whine was suddenly, blessedly gone.

In the room below him Matt heard Sam Wilson yell “What the hell man?” 

Barnes replied in a shaky, gasping voice. “I don’t know! I’m sorry! I don’t know why…”

Underneath his words, under the angry Russian and the concerned voice of War Machine demanding to know ‘what the hell was going on?’ Matt heard Mockingbird say, low and clear to Hawkeye, “Well, he knows we know, obviously.”

Matt scooped the device up and loped over to the far wall, dropping down onto the ledge outside his own room’s window. Since he could ‘see’ again he’d store this piece of evidence away now and make his way back to the courtyard before anyone was aware he was gone.

If Shostakov realized they were on to him, this whole trial just became several times dangerous, personally and professionally. He’d need any edge he could keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 -- This story is detailed in the Mockingverse tale "Matryoshka" on this fine site.


	7. Seventh Inning Stretch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, back in New York...

Tony Stark stared at the ‘heavy duty’ punching bag in the weight room, the one they’d put in for Thor.

It was split down the middle, lolling off the end of the hook like a drunk man, spilling sand into a little mound on the floor. You could see the reinforced layers and layers of super-kevlar, the impact dispersal plates, the metal rebar reinforcements.

He turned and looked at Steve Rogers, shirtless, his magnificent chest heaving like a bellows.

“How? I mean, ice cube? How did you even?” Tony looked closer and saw blood on Steve’s hand wraps, the entirety of both sets of knuckles a solid line of red. “Buddy, how long have you been down here? Since we got word from Rhodey?”

Sixteen hours ago War Machine had called in and given the Avengers a terse run down on what had happened, including that the Winter Solider had broken Bobbi’s upper left arm and that whatever had caused him to go mental had been spirited away by someone. Thankfully, Leo Fitz’s camera system in the cell room had recorded the sub-sonic audio so they had proof that someone was trying to mess with the prisoner. 

So that had been bad enough. But then Rhodey had added they had Buck on suicide watch because he’d started muttering ‘Not again. Rather be dead, not again. Rather be dead.’

Sharon—who’d been in DC trying to figure out who was responsible for letting Shostakov out—hadn’t been able to start back immediately. Black Widow had disappeared to her dance studio. Steve—after making sure everyone else knew what they were doing/taking care off—had also vanished. He must have come straight down to the gym and started wailing on the equipment. The hanger arm on the heavy duty bag was warped from taking the strain of a super soldier’s pain and rage.

“Yeah.”

Tony leaned back on the wall. “Dude, I’m not Bobbi. I can’t talk you down off this ledge but…can I help? Try and get you drunk or something? If we slam enough whiskey into you fast enough it might work.”

“I.” Steve shook his head, then ran a trembling hand over his face, leaving a smear of blood on his cheek.” “I’m sorry. I…shouldn’t indulge myself like this—”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“Language,” Steve responded, but a tiny smile creased his lips. 

Tony grinned back. “You need to blow steam, blow it. I can replace this, no worries. But you probably need to eat, right? If you faint like some little girl I’m going to draw on your face with a marker.”

Steve shook his head but turned and headed back to the change room, throwing Tony a look over his shoulder. “That was a good Bobbi impression by the way. Acting like you care about me and all that.”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘m just in this Avengers thing for the publicity,” Tony muttered, already doing his ‘making improvements’ pace and mumble.

Steve showered fast and took the express elevator to his floor. By design, all their apartments had an atrium before the main living space, since there was always a chance an enemy could use the elevator shaft to get access to their living spaces. But Steve’s front door open straight into his living room, the same as Natasha’s, Tony’s and Thor’s did. The Bartons, Sam and Bruce all had a little hallways. 

The lights were on over the dining table placed against the picture windows, looking out at the Statue of Liberty and Sharon was just straightening up from laying out plates of food.

Steve staggered as the smell hit him, making his mouth water. His enhanced senses could pick out each scent. Deli meat. Fresh bread. Potato salad, the homey gloppy kind that he loved. Apple pie, ice cream. A pot of coffee and carafes of juices. 

Over it all the perfume of Sharon’s hair and the smell of her skin, that he could never quite define but signaled ‘home’ to him. 

She smiled. “I figured you’d come up for air eventually. Thanks for the warning Jarvis.” 

“My pleasure, Agent 13.”

Steve stared at her, marveling at her understanding of him. If she’d let him know she was back he’d have stopped to be with her…but he would still have needed the release the ‘safe’ violence had afforded him. The only other people who ‘got’ him like that were the other Avengers, and not all of them. 

He actually looked from the table to the bedroom door for a moment. She burst out laughing.

“Eat now, boobies later.”

Blushing, Steve took a seat and ate the plates clean.

*****

Steve nestled his head against Sharon’s side, curling up against her like a big puppy. The bedroom smelled pleasantly of sex and sweat. He just lay with his eyes closed, feeling peaceful for the first time since Bucky’s arrest. Nothing was really resolved but he’d eaten, they talked about the situation, Sharon had shown him some texts from Bobbi that cleared up a few things…then she’d lead him into the bedroom and made love to him, taking over responsibility for everything. He’d fallen into the well of pleasure she offered him like a man dying of thirst. 

She’d made tending his aching split knuckles a sensual act, tutting at him gently about that damage.

Hours later, the pain was gone and he could bend all his fingers again, thanks to his healing factor. He’d used some more of Clint’s tips and given Sharon reasons to be happy he had full control of his hands again.

Sharon sighed into his sweaty, messy hair. “You should probably go see Natasha, you know. She’ll need you.”

Steve winced. “I know. I’m just…not clear what the best action here is. I know what I want to do and I know what we should do and they aren’t the same.”

“Love, I think you should trust the team you have in the field to make the tactical decisions—that’s what’s driving you mad, that you can’t control every little thing. The end game is what’s out of their control. That I think you and Nat can have a hand in making those options a little clearer.” 

Steve’s heart clutched to hear her call him ‘love’—it was a new development and he hadn’t said it yet (though he felt it) and she’d told him that was okay and he was scared out his mind and it made him feel like the king of the universe at the same time—and managed to nod.

“You’re right. You’re right. I could go now—”

“It’s 4AM. Sleep a little, my super soldier. I will ruthlessly cuddle you for my own amusement.”

Laughing, Steve flopped onto his back and they switched places, her limbs twining through his like vines. 

Steve Rogers slept, wrapped in love.

*****

Natasha actually answered the door when he rang her call button. Steve looked down at her feet right away.

She was barefoot. Her toes were unwrapped and there was no blood on them. He blinked.

The sardonic look she leveled at him when he made it back up to her face could have slain a multitude. “James asked me not to do that anymore.”

“And you’re…obeying him?”

“Are you looking to get punched?” She responded sweetly, turning and walking back towards her breakfast bar. Two steaming cups of tea and a plate of dark bread slices covered in butter and jam were visible on the surface.

“Cats and dogs, living together,” Steve muttered.

“You stole that line from Bobbi,” Nat said.

“The Mockingbird is wise and canny,” he said, following her to a seat.

“I’m glad…having those three on the ground there is the only thing keeping me sane-ish,” Nat said with a nod, biting firmly into a slice of the thick chewy bread.

The jam was black cherry and Steve ate two slices fast. 

“Sharon pointed something out to me, as she usually does. We can’t do anything until the end game, right? But there are things we can do then.”

Natasha sipped her tea. “I was thinking that too. It’s all going to come down to what the judge says. A guilty verdict means…well, I doubt James would live longer than a few hours in custody. Which we all know would draw both you and I into Russia.”

Steve nodded. He’d go as himself, not an Avenger, not Captain America. But he’d go, fangs out and hair on fire for vengeance. Nothing could stop him. It was the same for her.

Thing was…Bobbi, Clint and Sam would know that. 

Nat looked into the middle distance. “They’ll get him out. They’ll sacrifice themselves for us, if it comes down to it. Go on the run, become international fugitives, make themselves criminals.”

“Yeah. That’s actually not the verdict I’m worried about.” That outcome would be bad—a disaster for the Avengers in general—but it was something that could be dealt with. Messy and painful and desperate but…manageable.

They stared at each other, reading the same thoughts at the forefront of their minds. 

“All comes down to that choice, right? And neither one of us even gets to say anything about it,” Steve grumbled. “Because if we put that pressure on, than the choice wasn’t real. I hate not being able to punch my way out of things.”

“Shooting people is so efficient,” Natasha agreed.

They both laughed, hollowly. 

Both of their text tones sounded, Steve’s a woman laughing briefly, Natasha’s a series of rapid clicking noises, wood on wood. Mockingbird’s personalized tones.

Bobbi had just group texted. The actual trial had started the day before.

_They didn’t call a witness. They just showed the film and the documents. Smug fucks. Tony, get your ass in gear. Jen, give Murdock a call ASAP. Steve, Nat, we’re not leaving him alone I swear. Defense is going to start in two days. May the gods have mercy on our souls._

Seconds later the tones sounded again, first Steve then Nat.

 _Bobbi to Steve: If we get him out of this—when we get him out, he might want to consider a career as an emo goth poet. Was he this morose when he was a kid? Eloquent in Russian but I’ve told Clint to keep the razor blades away from_ me.

Natasha got two messages, one of them a picture of a blurry figure, a young girl with straight blond hair. _This is the little one who was following me, must have been responsible for the sub-sonics too. She moves like she’s Red Room, sestra. I think you were right and they just changed the name. When this is done, we find them and burn the place to the ground, da?_ Natasha’s jaw clenched as she contemplated the indistinct form of yet another young victim of the people who had tried to turn her into nothing more than a weapon.

Then another message just to them both. Steve closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his sister in all but blood laughing, savoring the noise. It brought him hope, that joy in existence that buoyed them all up. 

_We’ve talked it through, the three of us. There’s an email that will trigger to Jen and Murdock’s personal accounts if it…happens. All of us have signed it. Declaration of intent, absolution of the Avengers, our resignations. The Red Guardian can suck our metaphorical dicks._

Steve turned away from the phone, unable to hold back a small sob. Sam, Clint and Bobbi had just promised to get Bucky out alive no matter what. 

“What did…” Natasha said in a low and breathy voice. “How did I deserve this…these people?”

“How did we both deserve them?” Steve responded.

“Well, yes, you don’t count,” she returned with some asperity. “You’re perfect.”


	8. Eighth Inning -- Two Strikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The defense of the Winter Soldier concludes...

"How are you feeling?" Murdock asked Bobbi as she settled into her seat next to him. She had a bulky inflatable cast around her upper left arm where Bucky had hit her. 

"Like a dweeb getting caught like that in the doorway but otherwise...eh...it's part of the game. Are you ready for...today?" she said, her voice a little tense on the question. 

Murdock had spent the first three days of the trial carefully setting up evidence points, calling in the few expert witnesses they'd been able to find who'd be willing testify on the Winter Soldier's behalf. Bucky had sat in his cage, mute and head bowed, barely reacting other than a few fist clenches when a Red Army doctor described the kind of physical and psychological torture he'd seen inflicted on prisoners in Siberia by 'parties unknown'. 

Despite the gravity of the situation, Murdock almost smiled. He knew Bobbi had caught his subtle maneuvering over the last few days. He was particularily pleased with the last piece of verbal evidence he'd gotten one of the other ex-Russian military officers who'd defected in the 60's to give as they wrapped up yesterday. 

_Murdock stood very still, listening to the small noises in the courtroom. He was pretty sure that the judge on the left, Pressian, was in the pay of whomever had set this whole thing up. His heart rate and breathing never changed, he never asked a question, he was barely listening. His mind was made up. By contrast, the judge in the middle, one of the wome, was firmly on the side of the defense. So he was working on the third judge. She was a cool customer, calm and measured when she spoke. She asked penetrating questions and made thoughtful announcements and right now it seemed she didn't like Barnes or his defense team very much._

_"General Peshkov, can I just get you to repeat that answer please, I want to clarify something you said," Murdock asked the witness politely. The man on the stand was frightened and controlling it rigidly, but he'd been brave enough to stay on the witness list. From the smell of his sweat, he had terminal cancer. Nothing much the Red Guardian could do to a dying man now._

_"The facility in Siberia was nominally under my command but I had to petition to the Kremlin itself before I could attend there or inspect it."_

_"So, the facility there-which we now know was being used to house the Winter Soldier program and imprison Sgt Barnes--was a Red Army base on paper?"_

_"Yes."_

_"And access was controlled by the Kremlin."_

_"Yes."_

_"Was that a normal thing, something that happened within the structure of the army at the time you served?"_

_"Yes, generally it would be because the facility was being used for some internal special project, above top secret."_

_"Were you ever granted access?"_

_The dying man shook his head. "No. No matter how many times I asked. I learned to stop making the request."_

_Murdock could practically hear the confusion from the middle judge and some of the watchers, since soliciting that piece of testimony seemed to run counter to his entire defense._

_"Thank you sir. One final question: given the information that was publically released by Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff did you know of any formal or concrete connection between the Red Army, the Kremlin and the terrorist organization known as Hydra?"_

_"No, none. We had orders to shoot to kill if any Hydra agents were discovered."_

_"Thank you again sir."_

_Bobbi stepped up to help Murdock back to his seat at the witness was dismissed._

_"Clever boy," she whispered in his ear._

Today, Murdock reached out and touched Bobbi's right arm. "We need Stark--" 

"Where do you think Clint and Sam are? We're not risking this or the expert going astray." 

“Do we have to stall?” Matt asked, listening as the room behind them filled with onlookers. One of the last ones to entered smelled like Natasha, that sharp hard edge to her sweat. The same one he smelled on Barnes. He jerked his head, trying to track her. “Hey. Who just walked in?”

“Young girl, blond. Dollars to donuts she was the one following me last week. So, we have Shostakov’s attention, if he’s sending lackeys.” The tension in her shoulders was extreme. 

“You can’t go rescuing her right now. One thing at a time,” Murdock said softly. 

“I swear, I will see this new Red Room burned to the ground,” Bobbi muttered, so soft it was barely vocalized. 

“The first one gave us Natasha,” Murdock responded softly. 

“And an unmarked graveyard full of children’s corpses in the Siberian hills. Sometime when I’m really fucking drunk I’ll tell you about the Crimson Creche. (1)” 

The doors opened again and three men walked in. One smelled like Hawkeye, like bow oil and testosterone. One sounded like Falcon, humming under his breath and the third…

“How did you?” Murdock said to Bobbi. She touched his hand and he felt a ring on her finger, shaped like a long lean cat forever running on her hand.

“I am King’s Friend, and honorary Dora Milaje, post the Kree,” she said, her voice smug.

“Using him as a technical expert is cheating,” Murdock responded. “I approve. His name was on the new witness list you submitted yesterday? You’re a jerk for not telling me.”

“I wanted to see if I could surprise an expression onto your face. “

“And?”

“Nope. Will try harder.”

The three men advanced up the aisle, taking the open seats left just behind the defense team. Murdock turned towards them. “Your Majesty. I’m sorry these reprobates have shanghaied you into this…mess.”

T’Challa, King of Wakanda, The Black Panther laughed lightly. “I am fully qualified to act as a technical expert on this matter, Mr. Murdock.”

“I’m well aware of your status as a genius, Your Majesty but I’m not sure I fully understand—?”

“The technology used to alter that film was developed by Wakanda. The tribal council realized in my father’s time that we could not rely on Vibranium alone for our prosperity.”

“Wakanda has the most advanced software industry on the planet,” Falcon said.

The judges entered the room and the Trial of the Winter Soldier entered it’s end game.

Murdock had laid his ground work the last few days and now he felt the firm footing under him. It was intoxicating, like that singing in the air when the sticks were moving perfectly, like he could do no wrong. 

He reviewed all the technical details, confirmed with the court experts the provenance of the damning filmed confession. The Russian lawyers, who had approved the addition to their witness list yesterday, seemed to be ignoring him. 

Even T’Challa taking the stand (he swore to tell the truth by Bast and Sehkmet) didn’t get a reaction.

Right until Murdock started playing the recording of the filmed ‘confession’.

On the screen, in grainy jumping frames, Sgt James Buchanan Barnes swore allegiance to the Russian government, forfeiting his American citizenship. 

In his cage, Bucky gasped like a man being punched. His fear and despair surged, making his sweat smell acrid, rancid.

Murdock made a hand gesture and Bobbi paused the recording, then rewound it to the point just before Barnes said “Russia”.

“King T’Challa, as our vetted technical expert, can you please advise what you have uncovered about this film? And excuse me, to clarify, what you and your team uncovered was off the original film, not this reproduction?”

The fact that the Wakandan team had been fed their initial data by Tony Stark was immaterial. He’d never touched the original materials, secured by Sharon Carter in three sleepless days of coordinated clandestine raids in New York, Odessa and a hill fort in Afghanistan. But he’d tracked down the only places the film could have come from, and showed them the only sections they needed to concentrate on. As it was, they barely made the deadline. Without the Avengers, the information might have taken weeks or months to prise from the data streams.

The Russian team all jerked to attention, murmuring amongst themselves. In the audience, three people had similar reactions. The blond girl at the back of the room and two men, one over by the windows and one near the doors on the right side. 

“Yes, Mr. Murdock. We obtained through military connections within the Ukrainian government a printed negative of the film, which was apparently struck without change from the original and sent to a top secret facility near the Black Sea. It had been left unnoticed in a store room for the last fifty years.”

“And was anything about this print different from the one provided by the prosecution?”

“Yes. It differs by a single word.”

“One word?”

“Yes.” T’Challa made a gesture and one of the bailiffs brought up the Wakandan recording next to the old one. He touched a remote and it began to play. Bobbi it play at the same time and Barnes’ dull, stilted voice echoed eerily in the silent room, doubled up in perfect sync.

“I, James Buchanan Barnes, renounce my American citizenship and allegiance to that failed, decadent state. I do swear my full loyalty and service to—”

And as the new recording intoned “Russia” the one provided by T’Challa spoke a different word.

_”Hydra”._

In his cage, Barnes looked up and made a noise in his throat, almost a sob. 

When the fervor died done, and T’Challa had crisply and calmly dealt with the desultory and confused cross examination by the Russian team, Matt Murdock called his last witness.

The Winter Soldier took the stand. He looked like a whipped dog, his whole body limp, his voice as dull and lifeless as it had been on the recording. 

Murdock, Bobbi’s hand tucked under his arm, approached him. His voice was soft, gentle.

“Sgt Barnes, you heard the new evidence presented. Do you remember making either confession?”

Bucky mumbled under his breath and was ordered to speak up. Without raising his head he answered a little louder. “No. I don’t remember much from back then.”

“Why was that?”

“Well, I—” Barnes stopped, his throat working. “I was…they were…torturing me, then. They cut off my injured arm and I was drugged up a lot. I could have sworn a million confessions and I wouldn’t remember.”

“What do you remember? Go slowly, if you need to.”

Barnes raised his head, blinking rapidly, visibly trying not to cry. “I remember being cold, all the time. I remember my arm aching and itching, even after they cut it off. I remember being punched, operated on, being injected with things…so many things. I remember people shouting at me whenever I spoke English and I remember…”

He paused, looking straight at Murdock for the first time, the scent of his sweat changing again. 

Suddenly, he smelled of hope. 

“I remember Zola. He was there the most, at the beginning. I remember him pretty clearly, even now.”

“Doctor Arnim Zola was the scientist of record who fitted you with your artificial arm? As well as began the mental conditioning intended to prevent you from disobeying orders?”

“Yeah. Little squat guy with big glasses. He was always talking to me. Right before the first time they put me in deep freeze he made this big speech to a bunch of people in the room, and he spoke to me at the end of it.” Barnes sat up , suddenly in sync with Murdock, with the rhythm of the lawyer’s questions. 

Behind him, Murdock could hear Bobbi’s feet dancing under the table in excitement. 

“Do you remember what he said to you?”

“Yeah. It was one of the first things that came back to me, the last time I came out of the ice. He called me the ‘New Fist of—’”Barnes paused, almost playfully.

Murdock suppressed a smile 

“Please finish the sentence, Sgt Barnes.”

“He called me the ‘The New Fist of Hydra’.” Barnes sat back, his head up, his voice clear and calm. 

“Thank you Sgt. No further questions.”

The Russians did not cross exam him and one of the men Matt had noted earlier jumped to his feet and nearly ran out of the room.

The Russians abstained from final remarks and Murdock kept his short. 

“Our expert testimony indicated that the Russian military and Hydra were enemies, with shoot to kill orders. The so-called confession presented was alerted and Sgt Barnes’ own testimony confirmed that he was tortured and conditioned into swearing allegiance to the latter organization. If Sgt Barnes committed treason—if he was even capable of consenting to any action in the midst of being tortured and mutilated by his captors—it was to Hydra. Not the Soviet Republic.”

When he tapped his way back to the defense table, Bobbi squeezed his shoulder, her smile nearly audible.

“Now what?” Muttered Hawkeye from behind them.

“Now we wait and see if Shostakov is as powerful as he thinks he is. He might still have turned the third judge,” Murdock responded softly. 

It was only minutes before the three judges returned to the court room.

“Is this good?” Asked Falcon.

“I don’t know,” Murdock said. Maddeningly, he couldn’t make out any new clues from the judges. He had no idea what was about it happen.

“All rise. James Buchanan Barnes, on the charge of treason to the Soviet Republic we find you—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The Crimson Creche (a Red Room breeding program) is an original concept, created by the author, outlined in the story "Matryoshka" on this site


	9. Home Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The verdict revealed!

"Not Guilty of Treason against the Soviet State or the Russian Federation. If the terrorist organization known as Hydra wishes to bring charges against Sgt Barnes, they are invited to apply themselves." A gasp went up in the courtroom. Bucky's head snapped up, staring at the judges with his mouth open. Clint and Sam slapped hands behind the defense bench. T'Challa, sitting next to them, made a satisfied sound. 

The male judge opened his mouth to say something-- 

Murdock heard the heart rates of the two people he'd pegged as the Red Guardian's agents spike. HIs hands went to his cane, touching the button that would split it into his billy clubs. 

Bobbi's left hand came down on his. "You're just a lawyer, remember?" she whispered to him, clear despite the rising noise in the room. 

"And you have a broken arm," he hissed back. 

The echolocation in the room was bad but he could see her smile since he was so close to her. "I heal fast." 

Before he could answer another sound slammed into him from outside the building. A high pitched electrical whine, crackling with power. A blob of motion moved towards them from high in the air, powered armor of some sort that was not War Machine or Iron Man. "Bobbi, the windows!" 

"Cover Barnes!" She ordered and Sam Wilson leapt the small wall, sprinting towards the cage that held Bucky. "Everyone down!" She tripped Murdock to the ground, still standing herself. Clint shoved a hand into his pocket and came up with marbles, Matt could hear them clinking. 

And then someone noticed the person in the flying suit outside the windows and screamed. T'Challa sprang for the people nearest the windows, sweeping several of them out of the way as the air was split with a barrage of high energy bolts fire from the armor. The windows shattered in a wave, spraying glass. There were multiple injuries and fatalities. The smell of blood and terror nearly overwhelmed Murdock's nose. 

There was a pause, the sound of the weapon outside charging up again loud to Murdock even under the panicked screaming and stampede out of the room. The blond girl in the last row stayed on her feet despite the crowd trying to push past her and Matt 'heard' a slim length of metal suddenly appear in her hand. He got up on one knee and raised his cane, getting ready to throw it as the girl's hand snapped back. 

Clint hurled the marbles at her, the first one taking the knife out of the air, the second hitting her in the hand and breaking it with a loud crack, the third hitting her in the side of the head as she flinched back from the sudden pain. She fell under a bench, limp. On the other side of the room, the remaining male enemy produced a gun from under his coat and pointed it at Barnes. 

There was no way he could dodge and no way even Clint could turn and take out the weapon in time. 

Sam leapt between the Winter Soldier and the bullet, his back turned. The impact sent him sprawling into the bars of the cage but nothing more. The Avengers had very good body armour. 

Bobbi, still standing, ripped off her 'cast' revealing the bracing underneath to be her combat batons. She looked out the window in time to see the powered armor's gauntlets come up again. "Incoming!" she yelled and everyone still standing hit the ground, including Sam and Bucky. 

This time the barrage sliced through the room like a cutting knife, sending shards of metal and wood flying into the air. Bobbi huddled overtop of Murdock, her arms around him and he could feel that she was wearing at least two layers of clothing. There was a scream as one of the guards at Bucky's cage was hit with multiple projectiles, her body jerking and twitching with the jolt of electricity in each one, even as her blood and brain matter painted the wall behind her. Part of the cage was slashed off but somehow, other than incidental scrapes and splinters none of the Avengers, Barnes, Murdock or T'Challa was hit. 

But the third barrage was not going to miss. The whine of the weapons charging back up came again. 

Repulsors flared from the ground outside. 

"War Machine in the house!" yelled Rhodey through his speakers, surging up into the air to engage the other flyer. They spiraled up, exchanging fire. The door to the courtroom banged open and shut again. The Russian man, carrying the unconscious form of the blond girl, disappeared thoruhg it. 

Falcon stood up and grabbed the door of the cage and hauled it off its shattered hinges. Bucky surged out into the open, to be flanked by Mockingbird and Hawkeye. T'Challa appeared next to Murdock, helping him to his feet. 

Mockingbird pointed out the window. "That was the Crimson Dynamo. Gotta assume she's got the gang with her, the Winter Guard." 

"What do we do?" Bucky gasped. 

"Well, we go to the roof. T'Challa, can you get Mr. Murdock to safety?" 

"I can fight," The Black Panther said, pulling his shirt open to show his vibranium-laced body suit. 

"Yeah, and then this in an international incident," responded Falcon. 

"We need you and Rhodey to defend Mr. Murdock, this courthouse. These people need medical attention and we can't stay to secure the building," Mockingbird said urgently. "We have our reasons for not getting you two involved any further. Done more than enough already." 

"You have a nation. Rhodey's got a career," Hawkeye responded, pulling off his jacket. He was wearing his wicking tactical gear under his suit. Falcon shed his ceramic body armor vest to the ground. Mockingbird -- her cast the excuse for the metal detectors going off -- was wearing her full uniform. 

T'Challa nodded. "I will fight by your side some day, Avengers." He took Murdock's arm and they stood out of the way. 

"Looking forward to it," said Falcon. 

Then the three Avengers and the Winter Soldier sprinted out of the room. 

***** 

On the roof, Hawkeye kept an eye on the aerial battle, with commentary, while Mockingbird tapped at her tactical googles. In a few seconds, four of Leo Fitz's drones -- the dwarves -- appeared, dropped bundles of equipment and sped away. The Avengers fell on the packs, removing their personal weapons and spares like the most lethal Christmas ever. Bucky just stood and stared at them, his mouth working and his eyes dark and hooded. Mockingbird picked up the fourth bundle and unwrapped it, revealing a gorgeous rifle and several hand guns. 

Behind her, Falcon and Hawkeye paused in helping each other set their equipment after shrugging into their uniforms. 

"Bucky. You're not guilty. You're a free man, in as much as a guy who makes your kind of enemies can be free." She held the guns out to him, then pulled them back a moment. "Look, we packed these for you. They're yours no matter what but...this is where the pedal hits the metal, Barnes. This is where you have to choose." 

Reaching for the rifle, Bucky froze. "What do you mean?" he gurgled, his voice thick and slow. 

Falcon stepped forward. "We had a meeting, man. We made a decision, as a team." 

"All of us, Barnes. All," said Hawkeye, his voice cool and deliberate, even under the screaming and the sirens and the explosions. War Machine was clearly winning the fight, in the odd moments one of them could pay attention. 

"We had to know what we were going to do no matter what the outcome here was," Mockingbird said. "And we decided we had to offer you a choice. You're done with other people controlling your life, even the people who care about you. They both agreed with that." She stepped closer to Barnes and he could see the weapons were all chased with silver and marked with a red star. Custom made for him, a gift worth more than diamonds. 

"So here's the choice Barnes. You stay and you fight and...you're an Avenger. You're part of the team and you trust us to have your back. You promise you'll face your past, try to make amends for what you did as best you can and we'll all stand with you. No more hiding. The Winter Solider, out in the open." 

His hands opened towards her, towards those beautiful guns, as though he was reaching for the wind. Helplessly, endlessly. 

"And if I don't?" he whispered but somehow she still heard him. 

"If you don't? If you run? Well, we won't help anyone hunt you, that's for sure," she responded, abruptly placing the gun bag in his arms. "But if you're asking 'will we come after you?' -- and this was unanimous--" 

The roar of a bear blocked out her next words and a huge brown-furred form hauled itself over the edge of the roof. 

Ursa Major, a shape-changer, one of Shostakov's lackeys in the Winter Guard. 

He rose on his hind legs, his snout open in another of those shattering roars. He was taller than the Hulk in his bear form, nine feet or more, one of the massive extinct cave bears brought back to life. Mockingbird covered her ears, turning away from the wall of sound. Hawkeye brought his bow up but didn't shoot, his face twisted in fear. Falcon stood open handed and stunned. 

A shot rang out and the bear's left leg exploded in a welter of blood. 

Almost comically, Ursa Major swam at the air with his forepaws, then pitched backwards over the edge of the building, his roar turned into a screaming whine. The thud that followed was earth shaking. 

The three Avengers whipped around and saw the Winter Soldier bringing his rifle down off his shoulder. The rifle that he had freed, checked, loaded and shot before any of them could move. 

Falcon looked back at the smear of blood where Ursa Major had been standing then at Barnes again. "You shot a bear! Is that even legal!" 

"His name's Mikhail Uriokovitch Ursus and he heals fast. He'll be back up here in minutes at most. Maybe with friends." Mockingbird exclaimed. 

In this arrested moment, they all stared at each other, three heros and a man who didn't even know who he was part of the time. They stared in tense, apprehensive silence. 

"If I say no, if I run, if I get my damaged brain away from you all...what will you do, Avengers?" The Winter Soldier said in a slow measured tone, his faint Russian accent stronger then usual. "You say you will not follow and all agreed? Will you leave me be then, leave me alone? WIll you -- will _they_ \-- abandon me to the fate I so richly deserve?" He cocked his head. "They should. You all should. And yet...you're still here. For him?" He looked at Falcon. "For her?" And now he locked eyes with Hawkeye. 

Mockingbird stepped forward. "For _you_ , sport. You didn't let me finish. If you run, we decided unanimously -- we'd hunt you the fuck down and drag you back screaming if we had too.” 

“We’d no more let you take off like that then we’d let Stark drink himself into a stupor. You think you’re the only one who’s in pain around here? Thor’s the only person on the team without PTSD so bad they should be in therapy,” Falcon said. 

“You're an Avenger, Bucky. We look after our own, especially when they can't look after themselves. You're not off the hook. But we're not letting you go either,” finished Hawkeye, earnestly. 

For a long long moment -- long enough they could hear the snarling as Ursa Major got to his feet and started to climb the building again -- The Winter Soldier stared at her. The he smiled, bright and happy and alive. He looked younger, more like the man from the pictures on Steve's mantle. 

In a swift motion, he shouldered his rifle and shrugged on the hand gun harness. "All right then, you got a plan, guys? Or do we just shoot people as they come over the edge?" 

Mockingbird touched her goggles, projected a virtual map into the air. It had two pulsing dots on it. "We're here, we need to be there. It's that direction," she pointed. "Everyone got it?" 

They all nodded. 

"All right boys, let's take this to the enemy." 

Ursa Major was almost to the top of the building again when Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier dropped lines to either side of him and repelled past. Mockingbird glided off the roof on her wing jacket, with Falcon circling above. 

The bear with the mind of a man howled and leapt off the building, dropping the six stories as though stepping off the curb. Falcon swooped into his face as soon as he hit, causing him to unleash that deafening roar again.

And while he was swiping at the flying man, the Winter Soldier and Hawkeye jumped onto his back. Bucky wrapped his metal arm around the bear’s muzzle, pulling his head up with the inhuman strength of a super soldier. Hawkeye rose up, standing on the heaving slippery fur of Ursa Major’s shoulders with the deftness of a circus acrobat and shot an arrow directly into his spine.

The three Avengers sprang away from the mutant as Hawkeye hit the control on his forearm brace and the powerful taser imbedded in the head of the arrow activated.

For an instant, the great bear’s roaring turned into an almost human scream and then he flopped over, twitching. A moment later, the bear shrank into a naked man on the pavement, an arrow sticking out of his shoulder. 

“You might want to arrest and sedate him!” Mockingbird yelled at the guards, then followed her teammates, already disappearing into an alley across the street. 

*****

Bucky heard Mockingbird’s voice through the ear piece Hawkeye had passed him before they jumped off the roof. She sounded calm, her voice low and smooth. Steve had said she was his tactical backup, that he would cede field control to her if he lost vantage and now Bucky could tell why. She had the mind of a general and the awareness of an air traffic controller, thanks to her tactical goggles. 

“We don’t know how many members of the Winter Guard are here. War Machine indicates Crimson Dynamo just pulled a ‘ninja, vanish’ and took off; he lost her in the clouds, so expect her to come after us. Her weapons systems are depleted or damaged, she might have to go hand to hand and she’ll be clumsy with it—the armor’s designed for flight not boxing. Treat her like Iron Man until we know. The Red Guardian’s unenhanced, we think, but don’t underestimate him. He’s fast, strong, well trained and smart.”

The four of them had split up, moving on parallel streets or above them, in contact through Mockingbird’s commentary. 

“Darkstar can fly and create physical objects and concussive blasts from an unknown type of energy. She can also teleport and that’s her weakness; she’s blind coming out of the portals for a few seconds. She trained under the Red Room. She can fight, don’t underestimate her.”

“Vanguard is her brother; they’re mutants. He’s a Super Soldier level physical fighter. Russia’s answer to Captain America. No special powers otherwise.” 

“Last active member _that we know about_ is Sibercat, another mutant, humanoid feline. Ursa Major is their tank, so we’ve got taking him out already going for us. But these are all people who’d been heavily indoctrinated from birth by the Red Room and allies. They will not be reasoned with.”

“All mutants?” Said Hawkeye. “Except Dynamo?”

“They killed mutants in the Soviet Republic,” Winter Solider said. “The only ones that survived were taken in by the state, as slave-soldiers. Like me.”

They came together in a town square, devoid of people. 

“Where is everyone?” Said Falcon, landing a moment next to the other three

“Thank Leo and Jemma and Lord Braddock. They managed to talk the local authorities into clearing a path for us. There might be hold outs but the dwarves are in front of us, moving civvies out of the way,” Mockingbird said.

The fabric of reality…ripped…next to Hawkeye and three figures catapulted out of a space of absolute darkness: a helmeted man in red, white and blue body armor, carrying a triangle shield bearing a double headed eagle. A blond woman in a black body suit centered with a seven pointed shimmering star and a cat-man, standing on two legs. 

Falcon leapt into the air, hand guns out. Hawkeye back flipped away from the group, a swift tumbling pass to gain distance like an Olympic gymnast. Mockingbird charged forward as the portal closed behind Darkstar and simply punched the blond woman in the face. 

Bucky jumped straight up and hammered both feet into the werecat’s chest, sending him flying. 

The feline mutant, Sibercat, righted himself in one flip, landing on his feet and the splayed fingers of one hand. Claws extended, scraping the cobblestones of the ancient streets into a sparking spray. His tail lashed and he sprang at the Winter Soldier without another pause.

Darkstar reeled back from Mockingbird’s blow, then spun spraying blood from her nose, and fired a beam of black light at the Avenger. Mockingbird took the strike on her chest super kevlar plate but it tumbled her onto the stones with physical force, rolling her like a carpet along the ground.

Vanguard was holding his shield up above his head, shedding Falcon’s bullets like water. He went after the spinning Mockingbird in a few steps.

Hawkeye put an arrow through his shield arm as he raised it to smash down onto Mockingbird’s back. A single twitch on the connected line and the Soviet Super Soldier was off his feet, giving Mockingbird time to get up and draw her batons. Vanguard snapped the line attached to the end of the arrow in the next breath but now the brother and sister face the married couple about ten feet apart, Hawkeye’s bow up, Mockingbird’s weapons spinning and humming. 

Sibercat was on top of Winter Solider, literally, Bucky on his back on the ground fending off the lightening fast swipes of the feline’s claws with his metal arm. Falcon folded his wings and dropped on an angle, smashing the werecat off the Winter Soldier and into a wall. Bucky rolled onto his feet, backing to join the Bartons. Falcon landed next to them.

“He is ours,” Vanguard snarled in a heavy Russian accent, pointing at the Winter Soldier as Sibercat limped up to their line. “Give the traitor and we leave, da?”

“He’s an Avenger, comrade. So, _nyet_ ,” Mockingbird responded. 

“He’s a mad man and a thief,” said another voice, from above them. The Red Guardian stood on a roof top, then leapt down to join his minions. He was in his full kit, red and white tactical suit and weapons. 

“And you’re supposed to be in jail,” said Hawkeye. “Cause, you know, you brought an ancient demon to New York to kill us?”

“Politics, my friend,” Alexi Shostakov said with an oily smile. Falcon put out his hand and Winter Soldier ran into it. 

“Not now, dude. He wants you angry,” Sam muttered at Bucky, who shook from head to toe for a moment, his rifle loose in his hands. 

“What did I steal Shostakov? Natalia was never yours you arrogant—”

“She was to be my wife till you poisoned her mind, you American scum,” Red Guardian snarled. “I wanted her and the soldier to come hunting you, so I could kill you all at once but this will have to do. Let her bury her friends and come to me with tears in her eyes.”

“Never going to happen, sport,” said Mockingbird, then turned and spoke to Hawkeye under her breath; they all heard her through their earpieces.

_”Delay helps them. We need to get to the end point on the map and we don’t need to fight them to do it. Up and over, boys.”_

“Three,” said Hawkeye, smiling at her. “Two. One.”

Falcon grabbed Winter Soldier under the arms and went straight up in a screaming blast of his wing jets. Mockingbird’s batons became a staff and she was vaulting over the line of their enemies, landing at the mouth of an alley then sprinting off down it. Hawkeye put a grappling arrow into the stone work of a building roof and was on it a second later, then gone himself.

And the chase was on. 

Sibercat followed Mockingbird in leaping run, his claws out. Darkstar went into the air, tracking Falcon with short bursts of her energy blasts. He dropped the Winter Solider on the rooftops next to Hawkeye and spun to exchange fire with her. Red Guardian and Vanguard both climbed the same building, going after the two Avengers.

The Winter Guard wanted a fight and the Avengers weren’t giving it. Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier, literally two of the greatest marksmen who ever lived, never fired a shot at them. Falcon, a pilot of unparalleled skill, just set his wings into speed mode and took off, even Darkstar’s mutant powers unable to keep up with his technology.

And Sibercat, turning a corner after Mockingbird was met with an empty street and a high laugh from an unknown place. “I fought Wolverine, kitty cat. You’re no Wolverine.”

The four of them met up again at mouth of a dead end street, surrounded by high ivy covered walls on all sides.

Mockingbird was breathing hard and bleeding from her nose, the usual outcome of running with her camotech activated. Falcon’s engines were steaming hot when he landed. Hawkeye was laughing.

Winter Soldier stared at them all from under those intense, hooded eyes.

“What is this? Our last stand?” he snarled.

Mockingbird pointed at the far wall. “Up and over yonder lies the promised land, sport. Trust us.”

The Winter Guard spun out of another of those black portals steps away from them. Crimson Dynamo reappeared, arrowing down to the ground to join her comrades.

Hawkeye and Mockingbird grabbed Bucky’s arms and pulled him away.

“Sprint, jackass,” Hawkeye yelled into his ear.

He hesitated for an eye blink then pulled away from them. “Avengers, Assemble, right?” He yelled as they all sprinted for the far wall, their enemies at their heels. 

Falcon’s wings flared one last time, Mockingbird’s staff snapped into the ground and sent her flying and Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier climbed the rough brick like a stair case. They all tumbled onto a stretch of lawn, damp and muddy, and came to rest as the Winter Guard crested the top of the wall and landed behind them.

Red Guardian opened his mouth to say something—

—A woman spoke over him, her voice flat and calm.

“Alexi Shostakov, you and your companions are under arrest for breaching multiple international treaties, attacking the Hague and violation of the United Nations accords on super human activity. Power down and drop your weapons and prepare to be taken into custody, as Ursa Major already has been.”

“On who’s authority?” Roared the Red Guardian.

Bucky looked over his shoulder, into the air behind them. A woman hovered there, in a slim flight suit, red and white, bearing a maple leaf emblem. There was a flurry in the air and two figures appeared hovering next to her, wearing black and white suits that mirrored each other. A man and a woman, they bore a striking resemblance to each other; siblings, clearly. 

A huge…thing…covered in long orange fur cleared the roof of the stately manor behind the flying figures and landed, dropping a small squat man in a wrestling singlet and a very slightly taller man in brown and orange. 

A snowy owl the size of a great dane swooped down behind them on silent wings and was suddenly a ice-blond woman with black eyes, her blue and white uniform making her look like some ethereal ice queen. 

“On my authority as Vindicator, the head of Alpha Flight, the official UN super human Peacekeeper force. The Avengers have committed no offense and our under our protection,” the woman wearing the maple leaf of Canada declared. “If nothing else, you are now on the sovereign grounds of the Canadian embassy, and therefore most firmly in our jurisdiction. Stand. Down. Or be prepared for a fight.”

“Come on, bub, I’m only here on a loaner but I could use a scrap,” ground out the man in brown and orange, metal claws extending from his hands with a _snikt_. Wolverine was not your typical Canadian.

Hawkeye was helping Mockingbird up from the ground and they both pulled Falcon and the Winter Soldier to their feet.

“Clear the way, folks,” called Puck—the smallest figure—cheerfully.

“Oui,” said the hovering man, Northstar, the fastest flyer in the hero community other than Pulsar. “I like a nice straight run at my target.”

“Cheri, we don’t want any of you to get hurt,” said his twin sister Aurora, the other flyer, who could fire blasts of energy that could hurt even the Hulk.

The last two members of Alpha Flight, the massive mutant powerhouse Sasquatch and the delicate alien creature called Snowbird simply smiled, never looking away from the Winter Guard.

The Bartons pulled Bucky gently out of the space between the two opposing forces just before Shostakov yelled something in Russian and the two teams came together with a clash like thunder. 

“Don’t worry about them. They may be all polite and stuff but the Canadians know how to fight,” Falcon said to Bucky.

“Besides, we have a ‘not guilty’ party to attend. With them.” Mockingbird pointed at the veranda of the embassy where two people were standing.

A blond man in a leather jacket and a woman with hair like flame.

As the Winter Guard got their asses spectacularly kicked behind them, the four Avengers trotted forward to greet Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. 

Black Widow reached out her hand to Bucky as he stepped onto the porch. “We didn’t want to influence you, James. We didn’t want to control you.”

“They told me,” he said, his voice low and gruff. “But the vote was unanimous?” He looked at Steve out of the corner of his eye.

“If you want it, Buck. If you want it, it’s yours.” Steve opened his hand, clenched tight until then and showed Bucky a magnetic patch unfolding against his palm. 

The Avengers “A” centered over a red star. 

Bucky Barnes took it from his hand and smoothed it onto his metal arm, over the place where Hydra had marked him as their own. 

“I guess I’m an Avenger now,” he said, pulling Natasha into his chest and resting his forehead against hers. 

Steve Rogers swallowed convulsively. “You always were to me, Buck.”


End file.
